tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33895298543773579642024-03-13T20:22:16.482-07:00Final Thursday PressFinal Thursday Press and the Final Thursday Reading SeriesJim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-13015859428469330302024-03-13T20:21:00.000-07:002024-03-13T20:21:20.232-07:00An Interview with J. D. Schraffenberger<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyh4r7GncQoLTxKrK0tgWqzk-J1kDoE7sjYaREGPGBJWfl3fFmHZ-rkkD9bmhv27xcZFyGaz_EzZrT4c-cQe1rfRVli2q2Abtm0oYq9TIb1LAo1kzaPKldK-hLLh6R0wBh_LbnDkVioRz4AbpA7mTjH77fg7tJVtfnJwvPJxEkNlb6_FmFIYOuq4-NFKA/s3456/Schraffenberger.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="3456" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyh4r7GncQoLTxKrK0tgWqzk-J1kDoE7sjYaREGPGBJWfl3fFmHZ-rkkD9bmhv27xcZFyGaz_EzZrT4c-cQe1rfRVli2q2Abtm0oYq9TIb1LAo1kzaPKldK-hLLh6R0wBh_LbnDkVioRz4AbpA7mTjH77fg7tJVtfnJwvPJxEkNlb6_FmFIYOuq4-NFKA/s320/Schraffenberger.jpeg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>March’s FTRS featured reader is J. D. Schraffenberger, the author of the recent poetry chapbook, <i><a href="https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/american-sad-j-d-schraffenberger/" target="_blank">American Sad</a> </i>(Main Street Rag), which Dan O’Brien describes as “deeply moving, unnerving, provocative, darkly comic, and thoroughly recognizable.” His other poetry collections include <i>The Waxen Poor</i> and <i>Saint Joe’s Passion</i>. Schraffenberger is an editor of the <i>North American Review</i> and a professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa. This event will also feature a performance by Michael Lefebvre & the Favorites, the band in which Schraffenberger plays keyboards. </b></div></b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on March 28 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). J. D. Schraffenberger takes the stage with Michael Lefebre & the Favorites at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpduysrT0uG9St_jVB6kUNS-C5XWvjP6DH" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Tomiisin Ilesanmi.</b> </p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tomiisin Ilesanmi: Many times, it is advised to detach the Artist from the Art to get an uninfluenced opinion. However, learning a little about the Artist can give a whole new translation to his Art. Tell us about your story. How did you first get interested in poetry?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">J. D. Scraffenberger</b><b>: </b>I really like how you frame the question, Tomiisin. You’re right that we’re often cautioned against biographical interpretations of an artist’s work—for good reason. We might tend to conflate certain experiences or ideas with a writer’s own, which is not fair to the artist or to the work of art. Some works, however, can be illuminated by an author’s biography. For instance, the North American Review Press recently published a posthumous book of poems by Jason Bradford called Stellaphasia. Because many of the poems concern living with a disability, knowing that Jason was born with muscular dystrophy helps the reader to understand his remarkable poems. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">In my case, I think I was drawn to writing poetry early on because it allowed me to be playful. I grew up in a working class home. We lived paycheck to paycheck. Playing sports was more important than reading books. And yet, it was also a home in which humor, irony, wordplay, and linguistic cleverness of all kinds was valued. When we learn to write in other modes and genres (namely expository prose), it’s usually for the sake of clearly communicating some pre-existing message. Maybe we want to explain something, argue a point, convince someone you’re right. The virtues in these modes are (usually) clarity, focus, and organization. But poetry sidesteps these imperatives. You can write a poem for the sheer pleasure of the feeling of words in your mouth. Knowing this origin story of my own journey as an artist might not illuminate my work, but perhaps the reader will understand at the very least that my poems look askance at the virtues of expository prose—and sometimes they do much worse than that. </p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirR0J6jD9DwEsALb_5FPVaNPxLtgCb71gGg0zhpaliik1CYN91vbw4P0kg6IQAfeiw9Gl4IZwV3lJT519qlQbC5HHHhm00E5wtRRbHq4I1W9K5QuRm0YBWc_WZSha_dEgcIw4eKu8F3J-yrOntxlwRwbcLxSMCHFxv8XplbrQKgfPEP00IDlIRd1sD0Ks/s610/Schraffenberger%20cover%20(1).jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirR0J6jD9DwEsALb_5FPVaNPxLtgCb71gGg0zhpaliik1CYN91vbw4P0kg6IQAfeiw9Gl4IZwV3lJT519qlQbC5HHHhm00E5wtRRbHq4I1W9K5QuRm0YBWc_WZSha_dEgcIw4eKu8F3J-yrOntxlwRwbcLxSMCHFxv8XplbrQKgfPEP00IDlIRd1sD0Ks/s320/Schraffenberger%20cover%20(1).jpeg" width="210" /></a></div><br />TI: Poets are very particular about every word, line structure, or punctuation that goes into their work. As an editor yourself, how do you juggle the editorial and poet hat when writing? How has being an editor influenced your writing?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">JDS:</b> I’m glad you asked this question because I spend most of my days reading other people’s writing, often with an eye toward what needs to be changed or fixed. If you fetishize that approach to text, it can infect your very ability to enjoy reading! Being an editor, however, has done one very important (and positive) thing for me: it has reminded me that writing is a process, and revision is a vital part of that process. You’re right that as an artist particular words and punctuations are often meticulous, painstaking decisions, but I do always keep in mind that things could be otherwise. Maybe that’s the main lesson to take away from being an editor. If I were the kind of person to have a bumper sticker, it would read: Things could be otherwise. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>TI: You have referred to yourself as a print poet rather than a presentation poet. What do you consider to be the difference between both types of poets? </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">JDS:</b> I am so much more comfortable as a poet of the page rather than a poet on the stage. I have tremendous respect for slam and performance poets whose work comes alive in the moment and in their bodies. I am enough of a taciturn midwesterner that this kind of performance does not come very easily to me. I do believe poetry lives in the body (on the lips, on the tongue, in our bellies and lungs), but I tend to carry poetry around with me (my own and others) in less obvious ways. I know it’s a truism that “poetry is meant to be read aloud.” I challenge that notion, however, if “meant to be” means that I cannot be enriched and transformed by a poem in the privacy of my own head. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAjndlnqNcA6Zb6v7_8PwRBK7z7MKvNkhiN2O7ahgh4cB01uEbQZBp6mBRy8oGgjoS440u7n6AEokKVlz7vZx0Nz4CHdU2u6d7F6fdVYsOKag9o8mg4NFGJxhxURufaHpeIwr0iLXJbyWrVTdw9NHW7fmZ3h_DJQh-X5m3PY7I-6bHl7G7o9_VF1iyiVI/s3400/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3400" data-original-width="2200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAjndlnqNcA6Zb6v7_8PwRBK7z7MKvNkhiN2O7ahgh4cB01uEbQZBp6mBRy8oGgjoS440u7n6AEokKVlz7vZx0Nz4CHdU2u6d7F6fdVYsOKag9o8mg4NFGJxhxURufaHpeIwr0iLXJbyWrVTdw9NHW7fmZ3h_DJQh-X5m3PY7I-6bHl7G7o9_VF1iyiVI/s320/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />TI: “American Sad.” What inspired the title of this collection?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">JDS:</b> The poems in this collection admittedly tend toward darkness and sadness. In an early poem in the book called “Time” I wrote the lines, “You can endure almost anything for a few minutes / But there’s a peculiar American sadness that lasts forever.” I am not someone who suffers depression or experiences chronic bouts of sadness in my everyday life. Most people would likely tell you that I’m actually a pretty cheerful person, even in the face of difficult circumstances. But we all experience sadness, usually as something to “get through.” I also believe that there is a sadness that hums in the background as a constant ambience in our lives. We may try to compartmentalize it, to repress it, to distract ourselves from it. Perhaps it is related to mortality, to a recognition and consciousness of the pain and suffering of others, of the various kinds of futility and hopelessness we feel on a planet that often feels doomed. I call this collection “American Sad” as a nod toward the various ideas surrounding the myth of the American dream and the grand promises that most of us eventually realize are lies. We remain tired, poor, huddled masses. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>TI: How do you hope people will benefit from reading this book?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">JDS:</b> My only hope for readers of this book is that they open themselves up to the strange, the
dark, the dreamlike and nightmarish, not for the sake of wallowing in sadness but for the sake of recognizing its terrible, pathetic beauties and finding something there that is true. As a writer and a thinker, I believe that art is not meant to be simply pretty, merely decorative or pleasing. Art has the capacity to create a rift in our everyday world to reveal—momentarily, through a glass darkly—a sliver of the Real. If <i>American Sad</i> is able even to approach that kind of truth, well, that would make me very happy indeed.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-60724446393457430662024-02-20T12:38:00.000-08:002024-02-26T19:10:33.092-08:00An Interview with Christopher D. Schmitz<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirt4fT-BMrWT4fXumGJjgtj3-gLnDQMmd76iZi9MEP0_FMkM6TnHLPFl__LZ4uRA-_LftuHfwdYyGnthZ1Kto9d3FZV8phAGumlLilibOBjoH3zJqGrPhaMWwgclHtxKfg2rieVdGdX6Q7gO0VJdoj7yqmtr_zvgApnlS7daEPafuloDWbGPSxdhAsh0U/s900/Schmitz.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirt4fT-BMrWT4fXumGJjgtj3-gLnDQMmd76iZi9MEP0_FMkM6TnHLPFl__LZ4uRA-_LftuHfwdYyGnthZ1Kto9d3FZV8phAGumlLilibOBjoH3zJqGrPhaMWwgclHtxKfg2rieVdGdX6Q7gO0VJdoj7yqmtr_zvgApnlS7daEPafuloDWbGPSxdhAsh0U/s320/Schmitz.jpg" width="213" /></a></b></div><b><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>February’s FTRS featured reader is Christopher D. Schmitz, the author of several Science Fiction and Fantasy series, including <i>50 Shades of Worf,</i> <i>Wolves of the Tesseract,</i> and <i>Curse of the Fey Duelist</i>, which includes his most recent work, <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Crow-Troll-Curse-Fey-Duelist-ebook/dp/B0BZJTHXXJ" target="_blank">The Crow and the Troll</a></i> (TreeShaker), a dark fantasy about “a contract killer, a gorgeous victim, and a mystic garden hidden beyond the Winter Court.” He is also the author of <i>The Indie Writer’s Bible Workbook</i>. </b></div></b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on February 29 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Christopher D. Schmitz takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpduysrT0uG9St_jVB6kUNS-C5XWvjP6DH" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin. </b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JIM O’LOUGHLIN: Though you write in a range of genres, a lot of your books have been Science Fiction. Can you talk about what drew you (and continues to draw you) to Sci-Fi?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CHRISTOPHER D. SCHMITZ:</b> I’ve always loved Science Fiction. I was watching a YouTube channel just this morning run by a guy roughly my age. He claimed the 90s were not some golden age of anything except for Science Fiction television. He’s definitely wrong, except for Sci-Fi being great TV programming in that decade. Not only was I watching it, but I was also reading it. I read lots of Golden Age and Silver Age stuff and more modern books. And not just Sci-Fi but also Fantasy, which are often lumped together in the same larger genre category. I picked up a library discard when I was in the third grade and I was hooked. Around that same time, I discovered some post-apocalyptic fantasy stuff that also really spoke to me and I started reading a lot of space opera as well. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMMzZUo83OquhB-pYfPB-s72mHnnDyxlpkU7X03EsV2_1tKGIgxYc3RXHn8AFkBd7Mia83UNPHYzaP0LBmrnYqcmaVsUmBK_Wajitw5GZcnIMCr-8Q4LYhtvRsTji0HgzMgCz7McIohh0KOY5FRqGXz45Gp2jeKnOzJGyc1Fc2uORprelv8EZGRK3WxTg/s522/crow.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="522" data-original-width="348" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMMzZUo83OquhB-pYfPB-s72mHnnDyxlpkU7X03EsV2_1tKGIgxYc3RXHn8AFkBd7Mia83UNPHYzaP0LBmrnYqcmaVsUmBK_Wajitw5GZcnIMCr-8Q4LYhtvRsTji0HgzMgCz7McIohh0KOY5FRqGXz45Gp2jeKnOzJGyc1Fc2uORprelv8EZGRK3WxTg/s320/crow.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />JO: You’ve also carved out a writing career in which you are heavily involved in publishing and promoting your books. Can you talk about how you think of your work as a writer/publisher?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CDS:</b> I have really thrown in on the independent side of the industry. I’ve been published traditionally as well as independently and really prefer the latter. Some of my author friends are big names in the SFF writing world (like guys with major movies and TV deals), and they are doing both based on their needs. I really like being in control and being able to shift when the market says shift. I travel to a lot of events every year and get on the ground level with my readers, meeting new people almost every week at comic book conventions as well as meeting return readers who have come to buy something else for me. (Although I am not entirely opposed to traditional publishing house deals, and I am in talks with one major Science Fiction publisher right now about one of my unpublished series.) Being an independent means you are also taking on the roles a publisher should (although what those expectations are has largely shifted in the last two decades.) That means I’m always promoting something, and I’m always looking for new ways to get in front of people. It started out of necessity, but I discovered I enjoy certain aspects of it. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: One of the things you do is produce an author newsletter. What has that experience been like, and when is it something you would recommend for other writers?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CDS:</b> I provide author coaching, teach at panels and workshops, and I’m currently developing some new author courses drawn out of my forthcoming expanded Indie Author’s Bible… but this is a piece of information I will always give away for free. Having a newsletter is one of the most fundamental things you can do. Not only do people follow you because they want to stay in touch with your particular brand or stories, but they want to be connected to you as an author. Giving access to ourselves as authors is something that the big traditional publishers cannot do. It’s what sets us apart qualitatively from the major publishers. Not only does that provide an element of access and quality, but it is effective and mostly irrevocable. What if your favorite social media site shuts down or deplatforms/shadowbans you or loses favor with your audience. All of those things have happened within the last couple of years. But even when things aren’t so drastic, your newsletter is still better. Email has higher open rates and if you want to switch from one email provider to another, you can take your list with you. You can also use it for other marketing things like creating custom advertising algorithms. Also, it costs you nothing to send an email. Do you want your Facebook followers to see your latest update? That’s going to cost you if you want more than a small percent to know you just did something neat. I have resources I recommend and highly endorse the book <i>Newsletter Ninja</i>. It’s written for authors, but I recommend it for anybody wanting to learn how to effectively use newsletters for your industry. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOakVBpT8jm5wIvhEHuqGIqSKsGdLM2CmKiXta5_i31aY98xxGweAlcgmXOWzqKeqbXNlJ_UK6LFELIuirbiZmBLe77-V8UWnnrFYItF6Jl14ZguzvJtw793d8xVqsbxb1LAZkwykfG0xS0CemYs_AZroRxqWQuX2xCbAz99NeJwThv9w21964wR75tGA/s3400/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3400" data-original-width="2200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOakVBpT8jm5wIvhEHuqGIqSKsGdLM2CmKiXta5_i31aY98xxGweAlcgmXOWzqKeqbXNlJ_UK6LFELIuirbiZmBLe77-V8UWnnrFYItF6Jl14ZguzvJtw793d8xVqsbxb1LAZkwykfG0xS0CemYs_AZroRxqWQuX2xCbAz99NeJwThv9w21964wR75tGA/s320/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />JO: Are there any other tips you have for emerging writers?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CDS:</b> I’ve gotten ahead of the curve on a few things including using Kickstarter and crowdfunding to launch books. Part of it is that it’s helped me find my people who love my kinds of books, and another part of it is that in researching how to harness that side of the business well I have joined several online groups to both learn and share, and it’s helped me find more and more like-minded people. It’s important as an author to surround yourself with voices you’ve allowed to be critical of your own work and methods and also to build a peer group. I really enjoyed watching interviews between Stephen King and George RR Martin. Those two used to travel around to shows to autograph books and meet people just like I do along with several other friends I have met on the author circuit. They value each other as peers even if the stuff is pretty radically different in many ways. That’s how a lot of author friendships are. I have friends who write radically different genres, but at the end of the day a lot of the challenges are the same and it’s important to have outside voices to challenge and grow you as a writer and also as a business owner …because that’s what being an author is in today’s day and age: it’s a melding of business and creativity. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: You and your wife also run a business, Waterloo’s <a href="https://www.theweismansion.com/" target="_blank">Weis Mansion Bed & Breakfast</a>. How do you manage the balance between finding time to write and having another job that demands your time?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CDS:</b> With great difficulty. I try to manage my schedule well. Luckily Kelly does most of the operational side on the bed-and-breakfast. I often split time between writing and marketing endeavors and break up my day with painting or property repairs and that sort of thing. I live and die by my calendar alerts.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-47970510314923085042024-01-21T09:00:00.000-08:002024-01-21T09:00:26.694-08:00An Interview with Catherine DeSoto<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH32qbFkcOHeiQiYlRkWr9tkatZeCRJPKWIMNmHNTq_6up5srXr5HEtmGg7V_krm1w8qikSloGbpYCbfGj86IGZfaczXN9yYWCV8OKBCHVU0JJ5Wq0BiW72vArsnOWG9viHbXTYTVZ2kRSBrX86ZIwVwiUqeKXNfeEfMZwQtvpaU2SxUJnn6y9my52dYU/s1341/IMG_0171.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1341" data-original-width="973" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH32qbFkcOHeiQiYlRkWr9tkatZeCRJPKWIMNmHNTq_6up5srXr5HEtmGg7V_krm1w8qikSloGbpYCbfGj86IGZfaczXN9yYWCV8OKBCHVU0JJ5Wq0BiW72vArsnOWG9viHbXTYTVZ2kRSBrX86ZIwVwiUqeKXNfeEfMZwQtvpaU2SxUJnn6y9my52dYU/s320/IMG_0171.jpeg" width="232" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: justify;">2024’s first Final Thursday Reading Series featured reader is Catherine DeSoto. DeSoto is the author of <i><a href="https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510772281/lies-of-omission/" target="_blank">Lies of Omission: Algorithms versus Democracy</a></i> (Skyhorse), a study of the impact of algorithmic curation of social media on divisions within the United States. Dan Kovalik writes of <i>Lies of Omission</i>, “this book will make you question what is true and factual in the world, and whether you have a viable path for discerning such things.” DeSoto is a professor of Psychology at the University of Northern Iowa. </div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on January 25 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Catherine DeSoto takes the stage at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpduysrT0uG9St_jVB6kUNS-C5XWvjP6DH" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin </b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JIM O’LOUGHLIN: While there has been a lot of media attention focused on the impact of social media on individual behavior, you approach this issue as a psychologist. How has that allowed you to view this issue differently?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipgUmGHsK5yq-ZElYHgVe_v7ViaFG7IHrjE_YnqsEvSxVKeDmjYmChcl9NRRE0Wo6kChDp-auiNtS930EI8QHy_XiDzZfzpxMFGJuAE_e7VVZQL5ExJo1wZBlNBJp66Wl1DF76gZapJHhjna-EdP1W_juIDZ1HrzFapk37NE-MSrkOv9cDsJJM9EmQ0gw/s446/9781510772281.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="446" data-original-width="298" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipgUmGHsK5yq-ZElYHgVe_v7ViaFG7IHrjE_YnqsEvSxVKeDmjYmChcl9NRRE0Wo6kChDp-auiNtS930EI8QHy_XiDzZfzpxMFGJuAE_e7VVZQL5ExJo1wZBlNBJp66Wl1DF76gZapJHhjna-EdP1W_juIDZ1HrzFapk37NE-MSrkOv9cDsJJM9EmQ0gw/s320/9781510772281.jpeg" width="214" /></a></div><br />CATHERINE DESOTO:</b> My background in neuroscience and psychology allows me to characterize what is happening in the brain when one receives certain kinds of information, and then link this to social psychology research on preferring agreement over disagreement. In all, this makes our little pocket gadgets, and the way they work with the background algorithm, the perfect storm for increasing polarization. There is actually a lot of relevant research and knowledge that explains why society is splitting. Basically, human beings have a powerful innate love to be right; it is hardwired in the brain, and this allows us to understand the addictive nature of modern social media. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: <i>Lies of Omission</i> details some of the information gaps that exist in how social media presents information on controversial topics. Can you give an example of how algorithms feed people with different views different versions of the world?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CD:</b> The divergent media feeding really began 15-20 years ago. By 2016 all major feeds were changing content based on what articles the user had been clicking and pausing upon. The book goes into detail, but for example, Neighbor A will opens her phone and see an article vividly describing the details of immigrant who committed a horrible crime, while Neighbor B opens her phone and is provided articles depicting a mother fleeing violence along with pictures of her young child with braids and a doll in her hand, stuck camping on the US border for nine months. Views on immigration problems will further diverge. Specific research on the algorithms' effects will be overviewed in my talk, and is well detailed in the book. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVpuSV622kC3a4T5dU8l-8ZVA604otcTTBtfXnZlSRAsYcISa3fspOQhw6RnmUkMYcH_C65XIHXaeDGLlRnfnNsG0T175S9rfrAoQhS1rAISiw4jzPEZxXi098SANkYNVFElQJTq0S90tnXTzhBuCgI0_kclup-_MubnNKqbZ2pvOVeU4vtQ0K0Q3YMiY/s1224/IMG_0167.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="1179" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVpuSV622kC3a4T5dU8l-8ZVA604otcTTBtfXnZlSRAsYcISa3fspOQhw6RnmUkMYcH_C65XIHXaeDGLlRnfnNsG0T175S9rfrAoQhS1rAISiw4jzPEZxXi098SANkYNVFElQJTq0S90tnXTzhBuCgI0_kclup-_MubnNKqbZ2pvOVeU4vtQ0K0Q3YMiY/s320/IMG_0167.jpeg" width="308" /></a></div><br />JO: While you are concerned about the effect of social media on individuals, the subtitle of this book—"Algorithms versus Democracy"— also points to your concerns of the political impact of these developments. What can be done to stop the corrosive impact on our politics?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CD:</b> I wish I had a good answer. I like to hope that increased insight and awareness might help in some small way. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: In writing this book, what were the pleasures and challenges in taking scientific data and presenting it for an audience that may include specialists as well as general readers?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CD:</b> Very hard to do; and I am sure I failed to strike the right balance at times. For the second part, I earnestly sought to give a strong and accurate overview of what a person who holds the opposing view might say and focus on. I hope that it is hard to tell my true view after reading the pros and cons of a topic. If that happens, I feel I succeeded. That is what I was going for. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJizZeBf_gjlxv0o9p2Hp1I_LvTO_Sa4ZHJDDaWRoUzqux9xJ8AHxsF-MFSHo18w1dRMmRn9V6jfinc-dmiY8632gGEtwvaxMZdaQZq15PAy8o4bdpgDv54UBy36-Mh2DL3vF5v_n-QWGu4VvqP18jd2-o-3DabOQN06XOmj43H2zwBUarqgO81gXcQE/s3400/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3400" data-original-width="2200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiJizZeBf_gjlxv0o9p2Hp1I_LvTO_Sa4ZHJDDaWRoUzqux9xJ8AHxsF-MFSHo18w1dRMmRn9V6jfinc-dmiY8632gGEtwvaxMZdaQZq15PAy8o4bdpgDv54UBy36-Mh2DL3vF5v_n-QWGu4VvqP18jd2-o-3DabOQN06XOmj43H2zwBUarqgO81gXcQE/s320/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />JO: How, if at all, has writing this book affected your own use of social media? Do you do anything differently after spending so much time on this subject?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>CD:</b> Yes, actually. Like everyone I do not want to have holes in my knowledge about issues I care about. Often, I try to look for specific content by name, and not let the media feeds (Facebook, Youtube, my News feed) select articles for me. I am aware that what is served to me is algorithm driven and will automatically work to keep some information from me, as well as buffer me from opposing information. I don't want to let that happen, or at least I wish to try to limit it. Another thing I do: I try to click on and pause on articles I do not agree with, even if I don't read them.... I do this to try and keep my feed from being too catered to my own viewpoints.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-2923171163372150682024-01-07T12:19:00.000-08:002024-01-07T12:19:50.380-08:00Spring 2024 FTRS Readers<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoTlCehozNdYd_BN1R_rpMfuxu1RGVQ66obzH3Nat12O7G5ZEpP5squJ1vC7dtP356YEsF9KwBeYZsQIUS0mGeB1Q4uGx1Qb1_DrCgBQmZUf_0G60aMqhqQ9OjGhAbww9Sfd4zJYOfD1howopbyE7bX_AdaL55w12FK2aAskhe2nswBdXon_KimeOUS_4/s3400/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Poster for Spring 2024 Final Thursday Reading Series" border="0" data-original-height="3400" data-original-width="2200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoTlCehozNdYd_BN1R_rpMfuxu1RGVQ66obzH3Nat12O7G5ZEpP5squJ1vC7dtP356YEsF9KwBeYZsQIUS0mGeB1Q4uGx1Qb1_DrCgBQmZUf_0G60aMqhqQ9OjGhAbww9Sfd4zJYOfD1howopbyE7bX_AdaL55w12FK2aAskhe2nswBdXon_KimeOUS_4/w414-h640/Final%20Thurs%202024%20Jan-April.jpg" width="414" /></a></div><br /><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-53820716792120866942023-11-15T05:16:00.000-08:002023-11-26T19:02:35.052-08:00An Interview with Monica Leo<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5B3lqBm0HGOPWyA5lc3Jo6_fd8T4YxaRzhJnJt9lk0fRs8RU63TvsBML49oFVrYwPV55E1AdvPkQ2wQFxp7mVRtYGN9eAZVbJstsEcX9LOOOoug7HklXjFmgq7VbYVROcnjrJPiZ5LehJhgF7OLcGLXXxNjNIA6oNtAXnIa6G47nMQJ50mCsS7B-DSSU/s601/Leo%20author%20photo.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="601" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5B3lqBm0HGOPWyA5lc3Jo6_fd8T4YxaRzhJnJt9lk0fRs8RU63TvsBML49oFVrYwPV55E1AdvPkQ2wQFxp7mVRtYGN9eAZVbJstsEcX9LOOOoug7HklXjFmgq7VbYVROcnjrJPiZ5LehJhgF7OLcGLXXxNjNIA6oNtAXnIa6G47nMQJ50mCsS7B-DSSU/s320/Leo%20author%20photo.jpg" width="256" /></a></b></div><b><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>November’s featured reader for the Final Thursday Reading Series is Monica Leo, author of <i><a href="https://icecubepress.com/2023/04/09/hand-shadow-rod-2/" target="_blank">Hand, Shadow, Rod: The Story of Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre</a></i> (Ice Cube Press). She is the founder of Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre, which is based in West Liberty, Iowa and whose members have performed throughout the country and globe. Next year marks fifty years of Eulenspiegel, which was founded in 1974. <i>Hand, Shadow, Rod</i> chronicles Leo’s journey from a young girl born to first-generation German immigrants, to a woman finding herself in the world of art and self-expression, to a seasoned performer and the head puppeteer of a well-established puppet troupe. </b></div></b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Final Thursdays Reading Series takes place on November 30 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. There will be an open mic at 7:00 p.m. (bring your best five minutes of original creative writing). Monica Leo will begin her reading at 7:30. The featured reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMsceGrqDMiE9HlAUZ4OyNkkGcgpZEf9Y5V?_x_zm_rtaid=8DV3pOzpTiGZq8G9MuGcWw.1696973636257.2677b3fe56c209ad620280d3b78d75c1&_x_zm_rhtaid=651#/registration" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview by Bennett Birkner. </b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Bennett Birkner: What inspired you to write <i>Hand, Shadow, Rod</i>?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">Monica Leo:</b> Two things came together, and that’s that the pandemic came along, and so we all had a little more time on our hands, and Mary Swander decided to teach a Zoom class on writing a memoir and she’s one of my oldest friends and I thought, “sure, I’ll take that class, why not?” I had a lot of fun writing it but I had never thought of publishing particularly until I got to the point where Mary said “I think you’re ready to submit this for publication!” I probably wouldn’t have done it without the pandemic, honestly. A lot of good things came out of it, a lot of interesting things. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>BB: What made you decide to arrange your book in a non-linear way?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">ML: </b>I never made that conscious decision, it just kind of happened that way, because I would start writing about something and that would make me think of something else or something else that might have happened later or earlier. So, I ended up being organized more by subject matter than by a linear approach. But it wasn’t something that I started out with the intention of doing; it just happened. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj9jPHOhxDEKNJ4NPsTgPZ3ISqkLzKiWsYmH_in2SRcnrYVF5aBTH1T1un509rYKSizWSzVKGzBK_fN_WONycX8n3Ib15ciAXGL0LGYCOTbAVPHqs5NtlPfNTDOuuIe2a0c8qvHWVlwMg9kmP1TY3apfW1Mj54vExfstYTL5iSHT9ewv0M5-eQkorsGrw/s2535/front%20cover%20Eulenspiegel%20puppet%20two%20to%20use.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2535" data-original-width="1736" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj9jPHOhxDEKNJ4NPsTgPZ3ISqkLzKiWsYmH_in2SRcnrYVF5aBTH1T1un509rYKSizWSzVKGzBK_fN_WONycX8n3Ib15ciAXGL0LGYCOTbAVPHqs5NtlPfNTDOuuIe2a0c8qvHWVlwMg9kmP1TY3apfW1Mj54vExfstYTL5iSHT9ewv0M5-eQkorsGrw/s320/front%20cover%20Eulenspiegel%20puppet%20two%20to%20use.jpg" width="219" /></a></div><br />BB: Beyond giving you your first set of Kasperle hand puppets, how did your parents support and inspire you as you began making puppets of your own?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">ML:</b> My mother was a freelance artist and my grandmother on my father’s side was an artist; there have been artists in every generation of my family, so it was natural for them to support whatever I wanted to do artistically. And, you know, the puppets were something I enjoyed playing with, I had a lot of fun with them. I needed another character, so I decided to just make it. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>BB: Did you start doing that (puppets) as a kid or was that more in adulthood?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">ML:</b> I was probably about 11 or 12 when I made my first puppet. I was a girl scout all through high school and our girl scout troop decided to cater birthday parties to make some money, and the birthday party I was involved in was the one with a puppet show so I did the puppet show, of course. I knew I wanted to study art and that I wanted to do some kind of art, but I didn’t really focus in on puppets until, you know, it really came down to it and I thought, “what am I actually going to do to support myself?” My mother, who was a freelance metal sculptor said, “if you are going to be a freelance artist, you have to find something that you enjoy doing that other people enjoy paying money for.” I’d always played with dolls and puppets a lot, so I started making puppets and dolls and selling them. And gradually, you know, started performing with them. The puppet theater turns 50 next year! </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>BB: What is the oldest puppet you have? Do you have any puppets from way back?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">ML:</b> Well, you know, most of the ones I made when I started out I sold. I do have one, come to think of it. When my mother died, we were cleaning out her house and I took it with me, and it was actually a self-portrait that I made of myself making a puppet, painting a puppet head. And that predates the puppet troupe, I made that before we were ever performing with them; I’m not exactly sure how old it is but it’s over fifty years old now! Of the performing puppets, Schulz is the oldest one of the performing puppets </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>BB: How did you develop the personality of Schulz?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">ML:</b> I didn’t, he did. And that happens with puppets, that really happens with puppets. You make a puppet, sometimes you have a completely different intention for it than it ends up being, but you make the puppet and you put it on and start playing with it, and it just kinda develops its own personality. I’m not the only one that will tell you that. I mean, puppeteers often have that experience. It has something to do with you because you’re the one that’s manipulating it, but it goes way beyond that; it’s not that simple. The definition of a puppet is any inanimate object that’s brought to life by a manipulator. And really it covers dolls, obviously, if you work them that way, if that’s how you play with them, but it can also cover a kitchen whisk if you use it as a character. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir0QcLndnlNxtan-CcJZwZ2FL8OTrskGRklcvDWh7l4sJ7LNhg_eUz9cWVRVIQL3ClTalx6X5NzftqPBFtKiAaaLic7N4gSPTAlZKlS6nSotA0jZO-xBgpjp8T0ofWqs-SVqhRa7uecVjeSJYkD-rtwtAVLMDWMHg52dHJ0wPZ3UpCJW0qWw0DsdC2ql8/s650/Shenanigans.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="650" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir0QcLndnlNxtan-CcJZwZ2FL8OTrskGRklcvDWh7l4sJ7LNhg_eUz9cWVRVIQL3ClTalx6X5NzftqPBFtKiAaaLic7N4gSPTAlZKlS6nSotA0jZO-xBgpjp8T0ofWqs-SVqhRa7uecVjeSJYkD-rtwtAVLMDWMHg52dHJ0wPZ3UpCJW0qWw0DsdC2ql8/s320/Shenanigans.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br />BB: What puppet are you most proud of creating and why?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">ML:</b> What I’d like to say instead is what are the shows I’m most proud of. The first one is one that I actually have had for quite awhile that I made in the early 2000s; it’s called <i>Finding Home</i>, and it’s a trilogy about my parents’ immigration experience. So it’s a memoir, a puppet show memoir. And the reason that I’m proud of that is that I ended up really developing techniques that I had never worked with before and that I’d never really thought of working with before; it broke new ground for me. So that’s one of them, and the other one I’m really proud of is the drive-in show that we developed during the pandemic, it’s called <i>Shenanigans: Animals In Charge</i>. And we knew, you know we were really tired of not being able to perform live, we’d done some live outdoor shows, but everything else had been canceled, everything we had scheduled to do was canceled. And so, some puppeteer friends in Arizona were doing some drive-in shows, and I thought we could do that. Then the next day, Stephanie, my co-puppeteer, thought it was a great idea too. She said “what’s our subject?” and the next day I was listening to public radio, and they were talking about an alligator that was cruising around a deserted shopping mall in Myrtle Beach! And I thought oh that has puppet show written all over it. So Stephanie and I started checking the internet and researching as many things as we could find about what animals were up to during the pandemic. There were some amazing stories, you know, like penguins roaming the art museum, and city monkeys and temple monkeys that both left the places that they usually were and traveled to the other place because they thought they might find more tourists there and the tourists always fed them, and they got into a brawl on the street over a yogurt cup, you know, and goats all over the place that were stampeding city streets; there were so many stories of different things animals were doing that they were doing specifically because there weren’t any humans out and about. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">I feel really happy about the way we developed the story around that and the way it kept us going during the pandemic. It’s actually kind of a history show, in a way; there’s obviously a whole lot of fantasy wrapped in, for instance the penguins in our story ride a bus. And the goat and the monkeys, the temple monkey and the city monkey, have a bake-off in Las Vegas. And those things of course are all just fantasy, but everything in it is based on something that really happened during the pandemic. And then we went around, we performed that in 15 different locations in Iowa during the fall of 2020, and we would have done more except it got too cold. We got a transmitter so that people could listen to it over their car radios. People loved it, they were so excited about having live theater to attend, and so I feel pretty proud of that, too, not only of how we developed the story but also how we adapted to the pandemic.
</p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-50768633923779578812023-10-10T14:45:00.011-07:002023-10-10T19:13:22.795-07:00An Interview with Cherie Dargan<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><span style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ycNZW7428rworvCIvRG9iHN7iOj-LBFVo2k9IZaID7jGzxLwUvewxHH40nZ0mikM5iTa265FhiJiENDqE8Dl5uOL-zt_dKnF28AdlsnTDvV-ronKjqp6-DWmxlGi7e8WGj01lQcNhCbykqzqUfnc4YPNuWqqHDSg0NUltNbi99f8hMWSUL35elFmpiA/s2048/cherie%20in%20purple%20shirt%20holding%20book%20august.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ycNZW7428rworvCIvRG9iHN7iOj-LBFVo2k9IZaID7jGzxLwUvewxHH40nZ0mikM5iTa265FhiJiENDqE8Dl5uOL-zt_dKnF28AdlsnTDvV-ronKjqp6-DWmxlGi7e8WGj01lQcNhCbykqzqUfnc4YPNuWqqHDSg0NUltNbi99f8hMWSUL35elFmpiA/s320/cherie%20in%20purple%20shirt%20holding%20book%20august.jpg" width="240" /></a></div></span></b></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>This month's FTRS featured reader is <a href="http://www.cheriedargan.com" target="_blank">Cherie Dargan</a>, the author of <i>The Gift</i>, a novel<i> </i>from the <i>Grandmother’s Treasures</i> series. <i>The Gift</i>, set both during WWII and the contemporary period, tells the story of three sisters who leave Iowa to work in California during WWII and the lasting impact of those years on their family. Dargan is a retired instructor of English at Hawkeye Community College, and you can <a href="https://substack.com/profile/59531398-cherie-dargan" target="_blank">follow her on Substack</a>. </b></div></b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Cherie Dargan will be the featured reader at the Final Thursday Reading Series on October 26 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m., and Cherie Dargan takes the stage at 7:30. Dargan’s reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMsceGrqDMiE9HlAUZ4OyNkkGcgpZEf9Y5V?_x_zm_rtaid=8DV3pOzpTiGZq8G9MuGcWw.1696973636257.2677b3fe56c209ad620280d3b78d75c1&_x_zm_rhtaid=651#/registration" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a Zoom link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview by Patrick Markovich.</b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Patrick Markovich: How did you manage the voice of each person you write about?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">Cherie Dargan:</b> While I based characters on my mother, Charlotte, and my aunt Jeanne, I didn’t tell their life stories. I created a fictional family, a family tree, and a cast of characters for the 2012 story and the one set during WWII. However, I read through my mother’s big notebook about WWII. She wrote a chapter about each year from 1939 through 1946. She wrote about teaching in a one-room schoolhouse for two years, teaching her small town about food rationing, and wiring up the schoolhouse and farm. So those things are true to life. My mother died 25 years ago, but her hard work documenting her life helped me write the book. Aunt Jeanne was 96 in 2020 and read the first draft and loved it. I put the published book in her hands a week before she died at age 98 and told her that Aunt Violet lives on in three more books! </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_l2JXVqW6HqJKqyJcWZiGSpv1Y21t6nYBg_aJ7Y5Y6TGbT-3AN7UBSpP-Ege1JSO-iO4rCZreSjnK9kYKtY362rXiOdpK__DyF7fZZPlXQgTTQHgD_52XaiQBxLHLVhLx_sUnv4p07KZviwzfAGjwxZ9CDURXddkH1DRnfSw2C4Lx5NNSCgNglkWaKI/s2700/The%20Gift%20front%20cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2700" data-original-width="1800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_l2JXVqW6HqJKqyJcWZiGSpv1Y21t6nYBg_aJ7Y5Y6TGbT-3AN7UBSpP-Ege1JSO-iO4rCZreSjnK9kYKtY362rXiOdpK__DyF7fZZPlXQgTTQHgD_52XaiQBxLHLVhLx_sUnv4p07KZviwzfAGjwxZ9CDURXddkH1DRnfSw2C4Lx5NNSCgNglkWaKI/s320/The%20Gift%20front%20cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><b>PM: Where did you get the idea for the series?
<br />CD: </b>I inherited a dozen antique quilts stored in a big antique chest built by my grandfather. In addition, Mom left notebooks filled with family genealogy. I got the idea for Gracie’s grandmother to say, “Every quilt has a story.” So, I took little bits and pieces of family history and created a series of novels that each included a mystery or puzzle about an old quilt.
Quilts and making quilts were more than something to keep warm. They represented women gathered at churches or in people’s living rooms around a large quilting frame. Friends, family, and neighbors worked side by side and as they did, they told stories, shared gossip, and listened to their friends and loved ones. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>PM: How did you go about approaching the symbol of the quilt? I like to think it’s a really significant part of the story since it’s related to documenting family history and preserving it.
<br />CD:</b> Thank you! Yes, I was trying to create a story with a quilt at the heart of it, but the quilt was only a symbol of the problem. It was a concrete reminder of what had happened in California. The mother and aunts thought they could reconcile the two sisters if they sat down to quilt together. But that effort failed and made things worse because they didn’t confront what had happened. Worse still, no one in the younger generation knew what had happened in California, so it was a big mystery. Gracie asks her mother why the quilt is called the California quilt, and her mother does not know.
The grandmother hid the quilt away in a closet and didn’t want to talk about it. So, as parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles died, only the twins and their big sister, Grandma Grace, knew what had happened in California. She told the story through the tapes and trusted her granddaughter to take the next step.
I have several faded old quilts that could be the California quilt. I pondered what it would take to betray a twin sister and create chaos and heartbreak throughout the family. And then I found my story. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCNcuLSwse0wuBEYoYAtlv9NIKgkPGqeak82h5H2myky74HZJXrlmONuayIIUEk0rAgWXFgcwA4REo6PSVYAQ8-YpXUtVizAV9nXQ9OmoQvUYdl_H05UrUIZXFpdk1KI7TYvAOhwUkdP5jtfcU8o4ecf8aoxTiXhYxpNgR1diOVnY2SeNfg9pYaDpuIsg/s777/FTRS%20Fall%202023.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="484" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCNcuLSwse0wuBEYoYAtlv9NIKgkPGqeak82h5H2myky74HZJXrlmONuayIIUEk0rAgWXFgcwA4REo6PSVYAQ8-YpXUtVizAV9nXQ9OmoQvUYdl_H05UrUIZXFpdk1KI7TYvAOhwUkdP5jtfcU8o4ecf8aoxTiXhYxpNgR1diOVnY2SeNfg9pYaDpuIsg/s320/FTRS%20Fall%202023.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><br />PM: Was it always intended to be a dual timeline story?
<br />CD:</b> Yes, I’m fascinated with the idea of the dual timeline/dual narrator novel where the reader is getting two perspectives, and the storylines weave together.
Since the main character, Gracie, works at a county museum, has deep roots in Jubilee Junction, and has two elderly aunts on her mother’s side and three on her father’s, there are all kinds of possibilities for discovering an old quilt, photo, diary, telegram, or other artifact.
I used a series of cassette tapes instead of letters in <i>The Gift</i>. I wanted to introduce the concept of oral history as part of the novel. Gracie realizes the power of hearing her grandmother’s voice and incorporates that into her exhibits.
In my family, cassette tapes were a big deal in the 1970s and 80s. I went off to college in 1972 and my grandma would send me a cassette tape instead of a letter. So, I’d sit on my bed or at my desk and hit “play.” My grandma Nellie would walk around the farm and carry the little tape recorder with her. She was around 4’ 11” and 100 pounds, walking around the farm or sitting in her swing from the willow tree, talking to me in her soft little voice. “Well, Art’s going to take me into Garwin, and we’re going to get some groceries after I get my hair done.” All the while, I hear the birds, chickens, cows, pigs, horses, Shep the farm dog, and my Grandpa Art. And she doesn’t mean to be funny, but she is, somehow. My hallmates looked into the doorway of my room as if they expected to see farm animals. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>PM: You’ve said that <i>The Gift</i> is part of a projected series. Without giving away any spoilers, can you say anything about where the series is headed?
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIoqhyP-jkJnS8sUFHyr_KfX02JlXki4Ye7WO5lykDz8V6xo0UChI2ssvSeHOy4Nqxfceey44xytKzIuR6j-1yg1Rk9RmDfcAuPkWyQkFIBkpQdxYt67tZ3S8SvAwYCrT_GEoAtYX-UPkbfMAkS41j8CmwrapO4ZOT3Qc_DqjNZISyMvn5ilVUTDVrObU/s2700/The%20Legacy-Ebook%20Cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2700" data-original-width="1800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIoqhyP-jkJnS8sUFHyr_KfX02JlXki4Ye7WO5lykDz8V6xo0UChI2ssvSeHOy4Nqxfceey44xytKzIuR6j-1yg1Rk9RmDfcAuPkWyQkFIBkpQdxYt67tZ3S8SvAwYCrT_GEoAtYX-UPkbfMAkS41j8CmwrapO4ZOT3Qc_DqjNZISyMvn5ilVUTDVrObU/s320/The%20Legacy-Ebook%20Cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />CD:</b> The series sees Gracie make some important relationship decisions in the first book. She also makes a new friend of David MacNeill, the new history teacher at Jubilee Junction Community College. As each book reveals a new quilt—coming from a different grandmother—she gains confidence in her abilities to find answers, and we get to know her family and friends. And her relationship with David turns romantic. I hope to get at least Books Three and Four out next year, and perhaps Book Five. Then, I have ideas for three more books at least.</div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-79445266203705657982023-09-19T20:30:00.000-07:002023-09-19T20:30:31.459-07:00An Interview with Darcie Little Badger<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNOTHAqaR7sxgb_hYz8-xDzl7pQHblzF09RoNDeQqBDKzIO3rKJPoGv8DwRtrwFvqwFzNW8PQfbuWp1pk0hb-UXsg_APezGMgmx8SxbCU-NPN1olUB9dB_KvkpBbp1rUoTzSwsLN8jdu6pZ3UYiarQWLoTYPAo1czEoQ1Rq62U1Vn98_7TdX12Us9Rxk0/s3446/Darcie%20Little%20Badger.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3446" data-original-width="3439" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNOTHAqaR7sxgb_hYz8-xDzl7pQHblzF09RoNDeQqBDKzIO3rKJPoGv8DwRtrwFvqwFzNW8PQfbuWp1pk0hb-UXsg_APezGMgmx8SxbCU-NPN1olUB9dB_KvkpBbp1rUoTzSwsLN8jdu6pZ3UYiarQWLoTYPAo1czEoQ1Rq62U1Vn98_7TdX12Us9Rxk0/s320/Darcie%20Little%20Badger.jpeg" width="319" /></a></div><br />Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache writer with a PhD in oceanography. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, <i>Elatsoe</i>, was featured in <i>Time Magazine</i> as one of the best 100 fantasy books of all time. <i>Elatsoe</i> also won the Locus award for Best First Novel and is a Nebula, Ignyte, and Lodestar finalist. Her second fantasy novel, <i>A Snake Falls to Earth</i>, received a Nebula Award, an Ignyte Award, and a Newbery Honor and is on the National Book Awards longlist. She is married to a veterinarian named Taran. </b></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Little Badger will be the featured reader at the Final Thursday Reading Series on September 28 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m. and Darcie Little Badger takes the stage at 7:30. This in-person only event is made possible by the Ila M. Hemm Visiting Author Program. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Sheila Benson. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>SHEILA BENSON: Can you describe your Iowa connections?
<br />DARCIE LITTLE BADGER:</b> I was four years old when my family moved to Coralville, so named for its abundance of marine fossils, gorgeous and enigmatic remnants from a prehistoric ocean. Mom and Dad were students at the University of Iowa, and I attended Coralville Central Elementary School kindergarten through fifth grade. So during very formative years, I grew up among corn, yeah, but also among fossilized crinoids, coral, and brachiopods, alien wonders underfoot, everywhere. I remember visiting the natural history museum at U of I, seeing the <i>Dunkleosteus</i> exhibit and imagining life in the Devonian ocean, which was older than the dinosaurs. I was in awe. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">Needless to say, my time in Iowa sparked my curiosity about the world. And the <i>Dunkleosteus</i> exhibit might’ve influenced my decision to become an oceanographer. I wonder if it’s still there. [Ed.: <a href="https://mnh.uiowa.edu/devonian-coral-reef" target="_blank">yes, it is!</a>] </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>SB: Who would you say are major influences on your writing—style, subject matter, or both? Or maybe "influences" isn't the right word; are there particular authors or styles that you are responding to in your work?
</b>
<br /><b>DLB:</b> This is a good question, one I revisit often. As we grow as artists, our craft evolves, and sometimes our predominant influences shift. But when I first developed my voice, took those all-important first steps of the writing journey, I was just a kid. Therefore, I give a lot of credit to the science fiction, fantasy, and horror books I read during elementary and middle school. Things like <i>Goosebumps</i>, <i>Animorphs</i>, the <i>Redwall</i> series, and <i>Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark</i>. Those series were a joy to read; I was on tenterhooks for every new release. During this time, I developed a deep appreciation for “genre” fiction and decided that I wanted to write fantasy, sci-fi, and horror books, too. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmsYELGXltlgdNOWUNa4cTv8j6CIUncu51OJEB4jB2UpJZXzbkNlVflQkHLVNEGEMSsZ6UOfz9UlYL5Km1kYyVoJCNNVMokd_QtVr5R7SVzoYKQFp84wLUCutJOl3Qs65MEuTB2dKRJUTS5qKHLNuOfALr7Cr-gI1RNuaZuFddtUqnOJhvu3BC2fNmDc/s406/A%20snake%20falls%20to%20earth%20cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="406" data-original-width="278" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVmsYELGXltlgdNOWUNa4cTv8j6CIUncu51OJEB4jB2UpJZXzbkNlVflQkHLVNEGEMSsZ6UOfz9UlYL5Km1kYyVoJCNNVMokd_QtVr5R7SVzoYKQFp84wLUCutJOl3Qs65MEuTB2dKRJUTS5qKHLNuOfALr7Cr-gI1RNuaZuFddtUqnOJhvu3BC2fNmDc/s320/A%20snake%20falls%20to%20earth%20cover.jpeg" width="219" /></a></b></div><b>SB: Can you describe a typical writing day for you (a productive one, perhaps a less productive one, maybe a little of both—your choice)?
<br />DLB: </b>In 2020, after the publication of <i>Elatsoe</i>, I became a full-time writer, which is a privilege and dream; many writers work multiple jobs, and I’m beyond fortunate to now have extra time to focus on my art. <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Typically, I wake up at 11 AM, exercise for an hour, clean up, and then write/do other work (including emails) for about 4 hours at a nearby café or bookstore. My drink of choice is an iced Americano, and I’ll sip it as I work. Afterwards, I return home, make supper, and goof around until my spouse comes home (I’ve started streaming games and writing sprints on Twitch–it’s fun). If I have a looming deadline, I’ll work in the evening through night and early morning, sometimes finishing at 3 a.m. (bedtime). That’s usually not the case, though. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I once tried to write eight hours a day, on a 9-to-5 schedule, but it didn’t work out. My creative process is more chaotic, I guess. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>SB: Why speculative fiction? What's the draw? What are some of your challenges in writing speculative fiction, and how do you work through those challenges?
<br />DLB:</b> I love the freedom of spec fic, the ability to create worlds that vary from ours (in big or small ways). That said, there are challenges to writing fantasy. Just because a world has magic doesn’t mean it lacks rules, and writers have to decide what those limits are. How does the fantastic affect our characters? What are the physics of our imaginary concepts? And so on. For me, the editing process is very important because it gives me the chance to review the book and ensure that its speculative elements (and non spec elements) are consistent. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNMgmd1N0rwqTjLnbvjwm4UM4P82e9ZcBRymJEDSd0vfKyPeJONbPTaLbnUjgTG6XaBQvORihYUNLh3TA3WuyxHelkpSku3i5TlEQ5-14xpvVWwX64s_GmHuTdnKNgEtSwjWWqZpBBI8dGpkBfWyx3nwJePX9DnsvVo83Co9qc1i3OrjfoGFCUqCCBcc/s777/FTRS%20Fall%202023.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="484" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcNMgmd1N0rwqTjLnbvjwm4UM4P82e9ZcBRymJEDSd0vfKyPeJONbPTaLbnUjgTG6XaBQvORihYUNLh3TA3WuyxHelkpSku3i5TlEQ5-14xpvVWwX64s_GmHuTdnKNgEtSwjWWqZpBBI8dGpkBfWyx3nwJePX9DnsvVo83Co9qc1i3OrjfoGFCUqCCBcc/s320/FTRS%20Fall%202023.jpg" width="199" /></a></b></div><b>SB: Finally, a fun question: Elatsoe is filled with dogs and their joy. Can you tell us a little about your love of dogs? Do you have dogs in your life right now? Any details about them that you'd like to share?
<br />DLB:</b> I’m married to a veterinarian, so we get a stream of animals moving through our house, mostly foster cases that need a little extra care before they go to their forever home. Bunnies, hamsters, guinea pigs, mice, kittens. I’m very fond of animals, as a rule. But dogs definitely have a special place in my heart. <p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">My family’s first dog was an English Springer Spaniel, a shelter dog with sweet brown eyes. My brother and I named him Kirby, after the round, pink video game character who can eat anything (it turned out to be a prophetic name, considering Dog Kirby’s appetite; he once grabbed a birthday cheesecake off the kitchen counter and dragged it under the bed to devour it alone). Overall, Kirby was an intelligent, calm, and gentle dog, and I loved teaching him tricks like “be a seal” (he’d sit on his hind legs and put his front paws in the air) and rewarding him with training treats. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">The ghost dog in <i>Elatsoe</i>, Kirby, is absolutely based on the real Kirby. He was a good boy <3</p><p style="text-align: justify;">These days, I have a chihuahua mix named Rosie and a German shepherd named Valeria; every dog I’ve known and loved has been a unique and special soul.</p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-90903396806777067542023-08-03T13:48:00.004-07:002023-08-03T13:50:38.761-07:00Fall 2023 FTRS Slate<p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;">The Final Thursday Reading Series returns for its 23rd season with another eclectic slate of authors on the last Thursday of the month at the Hearst Center for the Arts. As always, you can share your own creative writing at the open mic at 7:00 p.m. before the featured reading at 7:30. If you are unable to attend in person, you can stream three of the four featured readings on Zoom. <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/j/97168368895?pwd=ajV3T2R2czJnK2Y4Q1dGSW9nbDlPdz09" target="_blank">Sign up once for the semester to stream. </a></span></p><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">August 31: DJ Savarese, author of the poetry collection </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Swoon</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and co-producer of the Emmy-nominated documentary </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deej: Inclusion Shouldn’t be a Lottery</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. **</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deej </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will be screened at the Hearst Center on </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #251f1a; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tuesday, August 29 at 7 p.m. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">September 28: Darcie Little Badger, author of the novels </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Snake Falls to Earth</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Elatsoe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Time</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> magazine </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">best 100 fantasy books of all time selection). **</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This event, made possible by the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ila M. Hemm Visiting Author Program, will be </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in-person only.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">October 26: Cherie Dargan, author of the novel </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Gift</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the forthcoming sequel, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Legacy.</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; padding: 0pt 0pt 0pt 36pt; text-indent: -36pt;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-652a45f4-7fff-5627-7de3-6f04e72d991c"><span style="font-family: times;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">November 30: Monica Leo, author of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Hand, Shadow, Rod: the Story of Eulenspiegal Puppet Theatre</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. </span></span><span style="font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Since 1975, she has been creating and performing as founder and principal puppeteer of Eulenspiegel Puppet Theatre.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">
</span></span></span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fHS5L5XGSIPd8Mj_Av7wiUamyHZnPVp5YcVfchRIPJCyuOLyylZDj2EM9UbU6RLjPz80fGRvCymTjO0cyY9-Qird2bHZBdeOVT4ZR_ioWt6JeeD2sOLK0cIgzQuTf2QyhD7KR4vs2OvpqIKI49vQvYR27zVyE38uDH5oT-fleaurfitra_fmIjKvY80/s777/FTRS%20Fall%202023.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="777" data-original-width="484" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0fHS5L5XGSIPd8Mj_Av7wiUamyHZnPVp5YcVfchRIPJCyuOLyylZDj2EM9UbU6RLjPz80fGRvCymTjO0cyY9-Qird2bHZBdeOVT4ZR_ioWt6JeeD2sOLK0cIgzQuTf2QyhD7KR4vs2OvpqIKI49vQvYR27zVyE38uDH5oT-fleaurfitra_fmIjKvY80/s320/FTRS%20Fall%202023.jpg" width="199" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-51341798678418131042023-04-20T14:20:00.000-07:002023-04-20T14:20:02.608-07:00An Interview with Andrew Farkas<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi89Wg2jhKYZD3oYPGcN62FVdTcXY2SDNu3W0dxsK0YrX2QYD6HAgvlJvQA1GVPjiA5MSDKFAejSigxuAZ8iJJxz5pccBGq-Q7wpr1s07FfEyr_e88yXdQZTS5Eetdp-FkqrsxWAxFKRHiQKEYaA8l0P4OUGHL0V-YGEFSKdruAB2QudfUfCIHWBRrP/s5257/Andy%20Farkas%20headshot%20bw-5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5257" data-original-width="3666" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi89Wg2jhKYZD3oYPGcN62FVdTcXY2SDNu3W0dxsK0YrX2QYD6HAgvlJvQA1GVPjiA5MSDKFAejSigxuAZ8iJJxz5pccBGq-Q7wpr1s07FfEyr_e88yXdQZTS5Eetdp-FkqrsxWAxFKRHiQKEYaA8l0P4OUGHL0V-YGEFSKdruAB2QudfUfCIHWBRrP/s320/Andy%20Farkas%20headshot%20bw-5.JPG" width="223" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Andrew Farkas is the author of the collection, </span><i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="https://thegreatindoorsman.org/stories-essays-interviews-podcasts/" target="_blank">The Great Indoorsman: Essays</a></i><span style="font-weight: bold;"> (University of Nebraska Press), of which Kathleen Rooney writes, “with searching rumination and exquisite comic timing, Andrew Farkas takes readers on a sublime tour through dive bars and coffee houses, video shops and casinos, pool halls and motels room, dilapidated movie theaters and dying malls.” Farkas is also the author of several works of fiction including </span><i style="font-weight: bold;">The Big Red Herring</i><span style="font-weight: bold;">, </span><i style="font-weight: bold;">Sunsphere</i><span style="font-weight: bold;">, and </span><i style="font-weight: bold;">Self-Titled Debut</i><span style="font-weight: bold;">. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Washburn University. </span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Farkas will be the featured reader at the Final Thursday Reading Series on April 27 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The in-person open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m. and Andrew Farkas takes the stage at 7:30. Farkas’s reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwqdOitqDkpHt04pfY9HKaUeQ2yPzsKAmUF" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a Zoom link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview by Jim O’Loughlin </b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JIM O’LOUGHLIN: You were initially scheduled to visit Cedar Falls in March 2020 before the pandemic upended all of our lives. I appreciate that you helped the Final Thursday Reading Series pivot to digital with an <a href="https://finalthursdaypress.blogspot.com/2020/03/virtual-final-thursday-reading-series.html" target="_blank">online reading</a>, and I’m glad we’ll be able to have a new ending for that narrative when you actually appear in person. But I’m wondering how the pandemic impacted you as a writer in either your subjects or habits.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">ANDREW FARKAS:</b> I was very lucky that, when the pandemic started, I was already fully immersed in a project, that being my book <i>The Great Indoorsman: Essays</i>. Quite a few people think the book is about the lockdown time period, but it isn't. Instead, it's about (or one of the things it's about) is my love of indoors spaces. Since I couldn't go anywhere, thanks to Covid, I was able to visit all of the places I missed in my mind by writing about them. Once I finished <i>The Great Indoorsman</i>, I realized I had another book that was partially done: <i>Movies Are Fine for a Bright Boy Like You: Stories</i>. I admit, however, by this point I was feeling worn down and wasn't able to progress through that book quite as efficiently, seeing as how I just finished it recently (I think). I did try, briefly, to start a brand new project, but found I just wasn't able to get it off the ground because of the general malaise. No matter what, I kept working at writing. But the most successful period was early on when I was working on <i>The Great Indoorsman</i>. I guess, in a way, it felt like I was in the pre-pandemic period because I'd started that book beforehand. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo52DmZGVtdPfHW-l_gjURty5iKKz5XbwB1beWuHyfcd7eJVSOmlG2VLvzQusR_EPLIzX1RtfZF_TdOncghImjqZjQFwovnXJgToPDwT2KZE5C_PyuPnpcslxFm2IQP3-_-HZk-GSQXLNpeyuC2JgbyBuNjyA8kfqoLz_MRWg3OybkbYj5VcWPXcj7/s500/Farkas%20Cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo52DmZGVtdPfHW-l_gjURty5iKKz5XbwB1beWuHyfcd7eJVSOmlG2VLvzQusR_EPLIzX1RtfZF_TdOncghImjqZjQFwovnXJgToPDwT2KZE5C_PyuPnpcslxFm2IQP3-_-HZk-GSQXLNpeyuC2JgbyBuNjyA8kfqoLz_MRWg3OybkbYj5VcWPXcj7/s320/Farkas%20Cover.jpeg" width="213" /></a></div><br />JO: I had a similar experience in that the pandemic gave me time to finish up some projects I had started but made it impossible to tackle something brand new. I read a recent interview with you in the <i>Brooklyn Rail</i> (which, to continue the theme, was a cultural lifeline for me during the pandemic with their daily Zoomcast events), and you said you had a “laid-back way with everything, which stems from my absurdist worldview.” Can you talk about how absurdism helps you approach the world around you?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">AF:</b> If you accept that there's no inherent meaning in life (or, anyway, that none of us will ever be able to discern the meaning), then, as I see it, our lives and the things that happen to us don't necessarily have to make sense narratively. I therefore find that I'm especially open to the moments in life that are odd because of my absurdist approach. For instance, in <i>The Great Indoorsman</i> I relate a time when, out of nowhere, I heard a guy playing poker say: "Our son died. And the guy we replaced him with was eaten by a bear. He just got in the cage with the bear, and the bear ate him." Later on, other folks would say to me, "I just would've ignored that guy." But I didn't. In fact, long after his story, I kept asking people if they remembered what that guy said. But because it didn't fit into a sleek narrative, because it didn't make sense, they'd all forgotten or thought nothing of it. I guess I'm constantly calling into question the belief that the big things, the things that fit easily into a straightforward narrative are important. That's probably also why the places I focus on in <i>The Great Indoorsman</i> aren't the normally celebrated, beautiful places. Sure, I like those too, but I can find the beautiful and the sublime in a bowling alley just as well as a palace.<b> </b></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: What else should readers know about <i>The Great Indoorsman</i>?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">AF:</b> Although there is a proud history of outdoorsy literature (Romanticism, the Transcendentalists, etc.), this is the first installment of what I hope will become indoorsy literature. After all, since the book came out, a number of people have approached me and said furtively (always furtively), "I'm, I'm an indoorsperson too." So if you've found yourself hiding (inside, of course), so no one knew your secret, you can come out (but not all the way to the out-of-doors for goodness sakes) and you can declare yourself an indoorsperson and you can read <i>The Great Indoorsman</i> and then, then, you can proclaim, in no uncertain terms, "This isn't how to go about expressing my love for the In-of-Doors at all," because, like, outdoors people probably don't grab the first book ever written about camping to learn about camping since the person who wrote it was likely eaten by a bear, so the reason you go to <i>The Great Indoorsman</i> is to say, "Now I know what not to do," and then you can boldly move forward and provide the world with the next installment of indoorsy literature. So what readers should know about <i>The Great Indoorsman</i> is that it's the first indoorsy book, but hopefully not the last. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div><b><br />JO: Since you've always worked with fiction in the past, what was it like writing creative nonfiction?
<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirLXbOG5Sv0IkXsn9rRlK2K4UcjmwYKM0hZnK2MkgNwRCruabCFLGPNYaUNUl9aX9Xf-chI_s9-sMHT5QXc_06Of1tdWxrrxyWfFrk-MjolZr3_wjaXPvOpu-17KJa4GhxGDmSHAR8QUtrFjE313qH9ty9NSFc--jdwM-BSs99HHskobtZCrRLIBZR/s911/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="586" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirLXbOG5Sv0IkXsn9rRlK2K4UcjmwYKM0hZnK2MkgNwRCruabCFLGPNYaUNUl9aX9Xf-chI_s9-sMHT5QXc_06Of1tdWxrrxyWfFrk-MjolZr3_wjaXPvOpu-17KJa4GhxGDmSHAR8QUtrFjE313qH9ty9NSFc--jdwM-BSs99HHskobtZCrRLIBZR/s320/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" width="206" /></a></div><br />AF:</b> Seeing as how a lot of my fiction is metafiction, I thought it was going to be easy (since even when I'm making things up, I'm telling the reader I'm making things up). But I did have to struggle with the constant problem all creative nonfiction writers who aren't famous have to struggle with: why would anyone want to read about me? One way I hope I solve that is by filling my essays with humor. So, if for no other reason, people might want to read about me to laugh at me (and also with me). I also use lots of different kinds of references, meaning I include a great deal beyond myself that readers might be interested in (various films, urban legends, physics, pop culture, etc.). Furthermore, our interior lives are part of reality also. So when I really felt that I needed to invent something to bring an essay together, I used lines like "I think" or "I imagine" and even though what happens next didn't necessarily happen in the physical world, the reader understands it happened in my mind and is now happening in their minds. Since I also knew that I could play with the structure of each essay, I ended up learning that the creative nonfiction genre is very plastic, not rigid the way so many people believe. <p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-7062774788644410762023-03-06T06:55:00.007-08:002023-03-22T13:29:09.754-07:00An Interview with Don McLeese<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhORPyncypDGm0DACXterwtnxMDzxx_aXgNLVb9FoVbZlC_ar-KfR9PkawFAkyXH3ei5aZkbpjwvgUKUwF9KzyZLVqS1px8NRl-baOyJE-Tmb6nJ5Ua751IdjouVeYQdECFKB6F_cMv9bejaAmdGNV2ycX9-O7NXb1D4QiTvq6OzxFMOrYxDdgk0GE0/s1110/don%20mcleese%20for%20web.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1110" data-original-width="1110" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhORPyncypDGm0DACXterwtnxMDzxx_aXgNLVb9FoVbZlC_ar-KfR9PkawFAkyXH3ei5aZkbpjwvgUKUwF9KzyZLVqS1px8NRl-baOyJE-Tmb6nJ5Ua751IdjouVeYQdECFKB6F_cMv9bejaAmdGNV2ycX9-O7NXb1D4QiTvq6OzxFMOrYxDdgk0GE0/s320/don%20mcleese%20for%20web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Don McLeese is the author of <i><a href="https://icecubepress.com/2022/02/19/slippery-steps-2/" target="_blank">Slippery Steps: Rolling and Tumbling Toward Sobriety</a></i> (Ice Cube Press), which <i>Kirkus Reviews</i> called “A raw, painfully honest memoir rendered in assured prose.” His work has appeared in <i>Rolling Stone</i>, <i>The New York Times Book Review</i> and <i>The Washington Post</i>. He is an Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Iowa. </div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>McLeese will be the featured reader at the Final Thursday Reading Series on March 30 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The in-person open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m. and Don McLeese takes the stage at 7:30. McLeese’s reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwqdOitqDkpHt04pfY9HKaUeQ2yPzsKAmUF" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a Zoom link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Sierra Nemmers. </b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEF1rXVs12WpFm2mrFvSfWvL8cncCnJsyYgkKHkx8PfHy-1fZKvS0S_fWLsCspwm_t5Tu8oZqAV5JtpoVxkSxo11OaRRAxGkO-WQWPXhL3MXnT0taE_6yfKYlD0U7waPvrjbX3VvibMIiuHx5hK8ogvBmz06qjEPbNnWRU3JDwcyCk5Mt68BksPtM/s192/Slippery%20Steps.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="128" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPEF1rXVs12WpFm2mrFvSfWvL8cncCnJsyYgkKHkx8PfHy-1fZKvS0S_fWLsCspwm_t5Tu8oZqAV5JtpoVxkSxo11OaRRAxGkO-WQWPXhL3MXnT0taE_6yfKYlD0U7waPvrjbX3VvibMIiuHx5hK8ogvBmz06qjEPbNnWRU3JDwcyCk5Mt68BksPtM/s1600/Slippery%20Steps.jpg" width="128" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sierra Nemmers: You've had a career as a journalist and journalism professor. What made you decide to write about your personal involvement with alcohol and sobriety?
</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Don McLeese:</span> I thought it would make a good story that would connect with readers and might help some of them. On a professional level, continuing to write as a productive journalist is part of my job. On a personal level, I thought it would help me connect some dots and fill in some blanks, to figure out for myself how I got to where I am now. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>SN: Since your book revolves around a heavy topic, especially one that is personal to you, did you find any of the writing process difficult despite your background in writing and journalism? Did you have to do anything to prepare for the heaviness that would come with reliving this part of your life?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: bold;">DM:</b> I've never written anything so intensely personal, but I've long drawn from personal experience in my journalism. In some ways, I approached it as I would any journalistic challenge—focusing and framing, trying to write a story that was as true, clear and compelling as I could make it.<b> </b></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2_CHSHR8aSOIlEGAZaWIJndZH1Trc4RNCZXGDzpw1tgh2NoPSOMxwlJKRlRZzRBUqxaF0rrqh2Cyk5fGXjSuij3jz8sZgF0nZZgOQydIh_uS6ZTqOPq4ic9sg7Dgcae-6jrxy-sWZdSsO9AOuUQxLrfYivpUoCuW8jBELWI0u_CLaPuct-Q56JFM/s911/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="586" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM2_CHSHR8aSOIlEGAZaWIJndZH1Trc4RNCZXGDzpw1tgh2NoPSOMxwlJKRlRZzRBUqxaF0rrqh2Cyk5fGXjSuij3jz8sZgF0nZZgOQydIh_uS6ZTqOPq4ic9sg7Dgcae-6jrxy-sWZdSsO9AOuUQxLrfYivpUoCuW8jBELWI0u_CLaPuct-Q56JFM/s320/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" width="206" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;">SN: Did you anticipate a certain reaction to the book? Did anyone’s response to your journey surprise you?
</span><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">DM:</span> When I was writing it, it was almost as if I had to act as if I were writing it for me, to figure out myself for myself, and to pretend that no one else would ever read it. So there was definitely an adjustment when others started reading and responding. I've been gratified by how positive and supportive most of the response has been. I've had plenty of readers tell me how powerful they found the book and how much it helped them.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-35544910271537539122023-02-15T11:03:00.007-08:002023-02-15T18:39:51.900-08:00An Interview with Seth Thill<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5xa_F23X214LOosxXgdbvjasvRh3igd_owj4D9-58CDBaQeNtjLQa4VF-65ajccPnetPQLhE9h2eRea2RsXb8cDg524bsl1a_szHOzEYcIbVLKGqveOD3WRNhfKFYXTCu-qyTITLLf8Gu4GZXYQG7eX0gSFidJbpwOI3R3RcFw7l_UlAE-ayXP9u/s1200/Seth%20Thill.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="820" data-original-width="1200" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT5xa_F23X214LOosxXgdbvjasvRh3igd_owj4D9-58CDBaQeNtjLQa4VF-65ajccPnetPQLhE9h2eRea2RsXb8cDg524bsl1a_szHOzEYcIbVLKGqveOD3WRNhfKFYXTCu-qyTITLLf8Gu4GZXYQG7eX0gSFidJbpwOI3R3RcFw7l_UlAE-ayXP9u/s320/Seth%20Thill.png" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><br />Seth Thill is the author of <i>Cover, Recover</i>, a chapbook that combines poetry and printmaking, and which draws from his recent work as artist-in-residence at the Hartman Nature Reserve in Cedar Falls. He is also an assistant editor at the <i><a href="https://northamericanreview.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">North American Review</a></i>. </b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Thill will be the featured reader at the Final Thursday Reading Series on February 23 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The in-person open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m. and Seth Thill takes the stage at 7:30. Thill’s reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwqdOitqDkpHt04pfY9HKaUeQ2yPzsKAmUF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a Zoom link.</b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Hannah McConkey.</b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>HANNAH MCCONKEY: I know you’ve worked at Hartman Reserve as their Visiting Artist recently. What kind of work did you do there and how do you think it affected your writing?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>SETH THILL:</b> What I loved about my time at Hartman is that it really gave me my chance to kind of do my best impression of the American Romantics (without all the self-reliance stuff) in a way that I hadn’t had the chance to previously. The whole lakeside poet solemnly meditating on the sound of birdsongs and the rustling of fauna and all that good stuff—that schtick, a la Thoreau or Emerson. Having the funding through Hartman afforded me the privilege to connect with my writing and with nature in a very raw, but quiet, calm, and open way, and that’s not something I’ve had the chance to do really since I was a kid. I wanted to seize that opportunity by taking a very observational approach to my writing. By passively taking in what I see and sense out in the Reserve and by interpreting and reinterpreting the various happenings in the plainest terms I can. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">But, of course, I am not Thoreau or Emerson, and we are not in the 1800s (all things I am glad for, to be clear). So while I was afforded this tremendous privilege, the one thing that could never be possible was total disconnection. The Romantic ideal of going completely off the grid with nothing but my finest quill, or whatever those guys had going on, could never be what I aspire to. While I was writing these poems, I was trying to focus on the natural world around me, but I still work full time, I still have bills, horrible things are still happening in the world, and I still walk around with a computer in my pocket. So I can’t write the poem about hummingbirds that isn’t also about a dead friend or the poem about the river that isn’t also about my bank statement. The chapbook I wrote in my time at Hartman, <i>Cover, Recover</i>, is twenty or so poems where all of those things collide with each other at various intersections. And the great thing about not going full Self-Reliance mode, is that I got to share my work with so many wonderful people through the events and workshops run through my tenure as Visiting Artist. It allowed me connection, and to me, that is much more interesting than disconnection. </p><p style="text-align: justify;">I am a first-generation college graduate from a working-class household, and no one I grew up with gives a shit about poetry. And I think that is partially because poetry gets this rap as some mystic endeavor led by the muse, a misconception no doubt fueled by often all-or-nothing veneration of figures like those Romantic Poets. But those were just some guys. I don’t write poetry because some magic force compels me to. I’m just some dumb guy who spends a lot of time thinking about <i>Alf</i>. My time at Hartman and the programs we put on during it gave me my proverbial rooftops to scream all my demystification talk from. And that demystification became kind of a secondary mission of the project as a whole, and had and continues to have a real impact on my writing. I never want to feel like I am writing for lit mag editors but not for people who just need to feel something on their lunch break to keep them sane. </p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5FhiTQ_M945dHcKhHzpPFHt2XUt2SElz6BdT2RwD_2khv0cTOw65kWi-kLLjmBcYDPGaqfIiImGcVFoSOxuNSnXJIbc12P0ShqAc9uUlf99gOchok8gTQH1JWYIOeKqpb5HNfCQnB2agIyz-rj9fnMG7-fguUhQ1QKkTNPdahDwYKLVufyHVH7f1/s438/Cover,%20Recover.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="288" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX5FhiTQ_M945dHcKhHzpPFHt2XUt2SElz6BdT2RwD_2khv0cTOw65kWi-kLLjmBcYDPGaqfIiImGcVFoSOxuNSnXJIbc12P0ShqAc9uUlf99gOchok8gTQH1JWYIOeKqpb5HNfCQnB2agIyz-rj9fnMG7-fguUhQ1QKkTNPdahDwYKLVufyHVH7f1/s320/Cover,%20Recover.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br />HM: You have a very unique form of medium when it comes to your writing by working with prints. When did you first start to discover this was the way you wanted to present your writing and how did you get into it?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>ST:</b> Thank you! Visuals have always been really important to me in my writing. I have always focused very intently on the imagery in my poetry. Images (and other sensory experiences) give the reader something to latch onto, and so that something to latch onto should be interesting. To me, poetry is just throwing a bunch of images at each other on the page and letting someone look at ’em and go “huh, that makes me feel something,” and then the person can do whatever they want with that feeling. And even beyond the written representations of imagery, the actual, literal look of a poem on a page has always been important to me, I have done some work on and have published some experimental, visual based poetry in the past, so the idea of actually representing my poetry through visual art, and specifically through printmaking was really exciting to me, and I am super grateful to everyone at Hartman for giving me the chance to explore more on that end. </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">To extend the metaphor of poetry as images dumped on a page in some sort of Rorschach configuration, the visual art is simply something else to dump on the page. I have long worked in multiple mediums, and quite frankly, I just think the more mediums you can cram together, the better! I love the fullness of experience someone can get from reading a poem, but also seeing what I think that poem looks like. Or for instance, I made <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/07Fsz0Ol0evbtP3TZzrPGk?si=PtESHN2CRnS9YbcMkxrxaw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a playlist of songs that I was listening to when I wrote <i>Cover, Recover</i></a>, because it is fun to me to read the poems and think about how the songs might have seeped in. So, essentially the idea of mixing visual art and poetry has just been something I’ve always done, but doing so with linocut printmaking was a recent decision that simply happened because that was the medium I was interested in at the time. There’s something really compelling to me about how with linocut, every decision you make is, to some extent, final, but even when you have the piece done and carved and exactly how it will always be, there are a million chances to invent and reinvent that carved block. That theme—of reimagining the cards we are dealt, of having the generosity to embrace what can’t be changed, of making the remains beautiful—became really huge in the writing process as well. </p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhBajK5J_1THruBoTeSha0EWomzY_pjDSeNWdxDh_Omm4ifTbnyntUZ4IYG6RW_d9rs9b0GrGi3kPPE4pLZP0B8qypgGUY98WtwFO8lwP2DYFCjxaLGz7r0Mi4-CGA_CDE77EaUERBsmlFBBcOXCGG6kWyQw9MLUlXzLnU7niVnp5xzbNkTHTG436/s1100/hartman.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1100" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikhBajK5J_1THruBoTeSha0EWomzY_pjDSeNWdxDh_Omm4ifTbnyntUZ4IYG6RW_d9rs9b0GrGi3kPPE4pLZP0B8qypgGUY98WtwFO8lwP2DYFCjxaLGz7r0Mi4-CGA_CDE77EaUERBsmlFBBcOXCGG6kWyQw9MLUlXzLnU7niVnp5xzbNkTHTG436/s320/hartman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />HM: A lot of your recent work is connected to nature, but that hasn’t always been true of your writing. What led to this development?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>ST:</b> Yeah, absolutely, so before this past summer, I had never really considered myself a nature poet at all. I think a lot of what we learn, or at least what I learned, about poetry growing up is predicated on the idea that nature and poetry are connected in some way. Haiku for example, is one of the more accessible and taught poem types and more often than not happen to be nature poems. Those Romantic Poets like Whitman or Thoreau are often touted as “real poets,” the implication being that their connection with the literal world around them gave them some nebulous authenticity. I kind of indiscriminately rebelled against that then, in my own writing for a lot of my earlier years. I refused to reach for that archetype by instead focusing on things that maybe aren’t what people generally think of poetry to be about. I wanted to be authentic to my experience, and while I always have had a valued relationship with nature, I steered away from it. I pretty foolishly adopted the idea that authentic writing had to be about exactly what your life is like on a day-to-day basis. The crappy work days and emotional swings and the movies you’re watching. Particularly, I wrote a lot about pop-culture in grad school, because that’s something that’s always been important to me, and I think it’s not always understood that those are things you can write poetry about. It felt like a tiny little way to rebel against Poetry’s stuffy preconceptions, or if nothing else, a niche. But I think eventually, I realized that now I was just arbitrarily deciding what is “Real Poetry” or not. Poetry can and should be about everything. From the big feelings you get staring out into the ocean to the buzz in the car with friends on the way home from a concert to that ear infection that’s like, mostly gone, but it still is throwing you just kind of a little off. All of it. And so, allowing myself to venture fully into the world of nature poetry not only allowed me to explore these wells of inspiration I had never paid attention to, but to have the sense to bring all that other stuff with me. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wkmhajne-S6wKEGzwaJA62mdTGd9QTcqukHBn9zEKfcDvKgBRdHRULK8Pm2XyBZxa1xEZkGkEOPQ98oTtfPtR-lAKP7FHATRckXFCQ2hTOMUYvd9J5r7nmUtdvefcUadoH9se2ecjJwYL942522hkqL_NbdO8rXxxHvEZGGgAv8z_0pjlWn8u4l1/s911/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="586" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7wkmhajne-S6wKEGzwaJA62mdTGd9QTcqukHBn9zEKfcDvKgBRdHRULK8Pm2XyBZxa1xEZkGkEOPQ98oTtfPtR-lAKP7FHATRckXFCQ2hTOMUYvd9J5r7nmUtdvefcUadoH9se2ecjJwYL942522hkqL_NbdO8rXxxHvEZGGgAv8z_0pjlWn8u4l1/s320/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" width="206" /></a></div><br />HM: Coming back to the art of printmaking, what made you decide to use that type of media for your writing rather than another such as digital art or drawing?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>ST:</b> I have a weird and long, yet collectively brief relationship with printmaking. First time I learned about it was in middle school art class, where I did some linocut of, like, Axl Rose, or something and it got chosen to be in some art show or something. But I didn’t do anything with the medium for a long time after that, just went to the gallery, had approximately one free soda, and went on my merry way. Then in college, my roommate/best friend was an art major and he was doing a linocut project and I thought, “hmm, I remember liking that. I should try it again sometime!” Alas, I did not follow up on that thought for about 6 or 7 years. Last year, I saw an ad online for a starter kit and went “well, I’m bored and have 20 dollars.” So I got it, and as it turns out, I like doing it! I mentioned this idea a bit earlier, but I like that it is both unforgiving and forgiving. If you make a mistake, you can’t undo it, but you can almost always make it look cool. It feels like a medium that rewards imperfection, and I am very imperfect. I make a lot of mistakes, both in my sports betting (I really thought the Lakers would be having a better year!) and in my art. I like drawing and painting, but I have never had a super steady hand. Printmaking helps me kind of cover those mistakes. It cannot, however, get Russell Westbrook enough assists to cover the spread. (I only hypothetically bet on sports with friends, so I hope I used “the spread” right). </div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">One last thing: you can find me (and my book) at <a href="https://seth-thill.ghost.io">seth-thill.ghost.io</a>! Thank you so much for your time and for your thoughtful questions.
</p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-89087997704671474412023-01-10T12:21:00.004-08:002023-01-20T09:00:17.301-08:00An Interview with Joyce Milambiling<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwupET0NWXTibHhCLNDgUKpksAj0uRQneMEacxonPKY1jePvMkMzQClQewdIb7BBYu80XsPmAxcBq9X6pUcT6uManO4TUQF2z4orHzQEHJ1Aj73Yhnrbb6BcrmXLYPoYSuN6tVVahbCsPsz_i08m0U0ysFTebLviTvOa-184iWFcUMHLGatvWZLWDv/s942/1Joyce.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="619" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwupET0NWXTibHhCLNDgUKpksAj0uRQneMEacxonPKY1jePvMkMzQClQewdIb7BBYu80XsPmAxcBq9X6pUcT6uManO4TUQF2z4orHzQEHJ1Aj73Yhnrbb6BcrmXLYPoYSuN6tVVahbCsPsz_i08m0U0ysFTebLviTvOa-184iWFcUMHLGatvWZLWDv/s320/1Joyce.png" width="210" /></a></b></div><b><br />Joyce Milambiling is the author of the forthcoming book, <i>The Skyscraper Settlement: The Many Lives of Christodora House</i> (New Village Press), which tells the story of the Christodora Settlement House in New York City’s East Village. She is a Professor Emeritus of TESOL at the University of Northern Iowa and was in residence this past summer at The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. </b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Milambiling will be the featured reader at the <a href="https://chas.uni.edu/langlit/final-thursday-reading-series-spring-2023" target="_blank">Final Thursday Reading Series</a> on January 26 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The in-person open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m. and Joyce Milambiling takes the stage at 7:30. Milambiling’s reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwqdOitqDkpHt04pfY9HKaUeQ2yPzsKAmUF" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a Zoom link. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin </b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JIM O’LOUGHLIN: Can you explain what the Christodora House is and how you first came across it?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JOYCE MILAMBILING: About seven years ago I found a collection of letters that were housed at the New York Historical Society and which were written in 1918 by Helen Schechter, an immigrant from Eastern Europe, to her English teacher. The lessons, what would now be called English as a Second Language classes, took place at Christodora House, one of several settlement houses on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Settlement houses were privately funded organizations where children and adults could take classes, join clubs, visit health clinics, and form bonds not only with local residents but also with the “settlers” who lived in the building. Many of the settlers were middle-class women who had recently graduated from college and were intent on volunteering their time and talents in crowded urban neighborhoods during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Christodora House has not received as much attention in the historical literature and in textbooks compared with such settlement houses as Henry Street Settlement in New York and Hull-House in Chicago, but Christodora was nonetheless a vital organization that changed lives and was an integral part of its neighborhood. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: Settlement houses have both been celebrated for improving peoples’ lives and criticized for trying to convert immigrants to Christianity and/or enforce cultural assimilation. Where does your work come down on this ongoing debate?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JM: The settlement houses did help with helping immigrants acculturate to U.S. society, but the newcomers were also encouraged by many of the settlement houses to retain and cherish their own customs and religions. The settlement house provided a valuable stepping stone for many immigrant children and adults in their education and careers and resulted in lasting friendships that bridged the fault lines of class and ethnicity. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI6a3LoJHp6lgI95y6bQPnl27cXgHArtEO8VQODxnzS_ZcGBsPQc61M3FfYcuIj3HgNz0WgMEa-Q8mVjL-eLs480k90pix4jYXvCDIzeNqJMWm0hNCDimyAWY1ZRoBvrjmr6so7eUuNxXQ7arA0tbAl_NOI0PzHf_keN0-_CsSMqonz7SvUlFFRGs3/s288/Christodora%20House.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="288" data-original-width="190" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI6a3LoJHp6lgI95y6bQPnl27cXgHArtEO8VQODxnzS_ZcGBsPQc61M3FfYcuIj3HgNz0WgMEa-Q8mVjL-eLs480k90pix4jYXvCDIzeNqJMWm0hNCDimyAWY1ZRoBvrjmr6so7eUuNxXQ7arA0tbAl_NOI0PzHf_keN0-_CsSMqonz7SvUlFFRGs3/s1600/Christodora%20House.jpg" width="190" /></a></div><br />JO: How did you decide that this was a subject you wanted to write a book about?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JM: I was fascinated by the relationship between teacher and student that was revealed in the letters as well as the time period in which they lived. This led me to conduct research on the settlement house movement, the history of immigration on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and how an organization like Christodora, which lives on as a non-profit foundation, has stood the test of time. The 16-story building at 143 Avenue B, still called Christodora House, has had a tumultuous history and was in recent years named a national and state historical landmark. My research brought me in contact with individuals in the non-profit sector, one of whom, the East Village Community Coalition, has an office on the first floor of that building. Today, Christodora House consists mostly of privately owned condominiums and was a controversial symbol of neighborhood gentrification in the 1980s. This connection between the past and present convinced me that this was a subject in which I could immerse myself and that would potentially be of interest to a wide audience. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: How has this kind of writing both built on and departed from the kind of research you did during your career in TESOL at UNI?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JM: During my time at UNI my research centered on sociolinguistics, language teaching, and bilingualism. One of the areas in which I presented at conferences and published was language policy, and this often involved doing research on the history of national and international policies, including the Universal Declaration of Language Rights. Even though I am not a historian by training, I have had years of experience reading and analyzing texts written by others from the perspective of a linguist and educator and this helped tremendously during the research, writing, and editing phases of the book on Christodora House. Conducting archival research was new to me seven years ago, but I was comfortable with navigating electronic library databases both at UNI and elsewhere and applied those skills to working with original documents and other artifacts as well as other institutions’ library databases. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnltSUoAqG-ym2gGYOJHC-TH-Y25JM3KkeARBAp1oezL-uzt4d_9H8b_Wq-tP6YcNLjblKML8eQDGkNrlJiQlOjKWghG7qrEeGI2bpE7T76vC7mJlc_e3qwXAJhCZ3SVV25IV3yu8eMwBpjy6hNPtWOWPKPDIZhnxDoCyDplXUBEw922P-BiILifa/s911/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="586" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXnltSUoAqG-ym2gGYOJHC-TH-Y25JM3KkeARBAp1oezL-uzt4d_9H8b_Wq-tP6YcNLjblKML8eQDGkNrlJiQlOjKWghG7qrEeGI2bpE7T76vC7mJlc_e3qwXAJhCZ3SVV25IV3yu8eMwBpjy6hNPtWOWPKPDIZhnxDoCyDplXUBEw922P-BiILifa/s320/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" width="206" /></a></div><br />JO: Can you talk about your experience at the Writers’ Colony in Eureka Springs, Arkansas?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JM: While teaching at UNI, I applied and was accepted as a resident writer at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow (WCDH) in Eureka Springs and then returned twice as an alumna, most recently in 2022, the year after I retired. The colony is housed in two buildings and each resident is supplied with comfortable and quiet accommodations, including a dedicated writing room. The Eureka Springs Carnegie Library is within walking distance of the residence and all WCDH resident writers have borrowing privileges during their stay. On my last visit I was able to finish the final chapters of the book on Christodora House and interview several contacts by phone. The peacefulness of the location and the opportunity to meet and have dinner nightly with the other writers in residence both enriched the experience for me.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-14809544211977633242023-01-04T14:05:00.000-08:002023-01-04T14:05:05.386-08:00Spring 2023 FTRS Poster<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4z2aPf6AJl74D-09m9p94Pc7jo18P7Naak6iUPxIjZPDM9Mx7WUbSTx9mXJqrTyUiPT5-P6YWlQqg8CfFTpxkmv9MW57bJLZw7uXYLlRn_asOg6mkZOseCUG1U-0uH9Kc9m3f7pS_uNwejaQtVUt8pBkNDCIBNwvjD9nzKAxG9uuvuOe_hoOVIuKh/s911/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="911" data-original-width="586" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4z2aPf6AJl74D-09m9p94Pc7jo18P7Naak6iUPxIjZPDM9Mx7WUbSTx9mXJqrTyUiPT5-P6YWlQqg8CfFTpxkmv9MW57bJLZw7uXYLlRn_asOg6mkZOseCUG1U-0uH9Kc9m3f7pS_uNwejaQtVUt8pBkNDCIBNwvjD9nzKAxG9uuvuOe_hoOVIuKh/w412-h640/FTRS%202023%20(1).JPG" width="412" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-60377022163799767702022-11-11T13:31:00.002-08:002022-11-11T13:31:58.958-08:00An Interview with Anesa Kajtazovic<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIeVqTZ_BEdZHJ8KYSlv-bDT5qQNtOCso-d46269g6tmUkSRJ3QNHMXXKJZJksGBOeGgpOaO0OgEgC4ZqDXWq2Xpmtq-p1C548KwWySscMHIFI-hDkjUyDv5R-9mBXA1Zx8wciULksYcTNoh-Xn2qT36S7cOanCS8vT-2WePIEGeHugAAU3BJAlcyD/s3600/Anesa%20Ksmall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3600" data-original-width="2314" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIeVqTZ_BEdZHJ8KYSlv-bDT5qQNtOCso-d46269g6tmUkSRJ3QNHMXXKJZJksGBOeGgpOaO0OgEgC4ZqDXWq2Xpmtq-p1C548KwWySscMHIFI-hDkjUyDv5R-9mBXA1Zx8wciULksYcTNoh-Xn2qT36S7cOanCS8vT-2WePIEGeHugAAU3BJAlcyD/s320/Anesa%20Ksmall.jpg" width="206" /></a></div><br />Anesa Kajtazovic is the author of a forthcoming illustrated children's book (title TBA) that offers a firsthand account of her experience as a child during the Bosnian War. Kajtazovic is also a former member of the Iowa house of Representatives.</b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Kajtazovic will be the featured reader at the Final Thursday Reading Series on November 17—ONE WEEK EARLIER THAN USUAL DUE TO THANKSGIVING—at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The in-person open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m., and Anesa Kajtazovic takes the stage at 7:30. Kajtazovic's reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click </b><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lduivrj8oG92ZUeGvm7EjSIy9DKb8rkuZ" style="color: #cc6611; text-decoration-line: none;">HERE</a></span></b><b> to register for a Zoom link.</b></div></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview by Jim O'Loughlin.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JIM O’LOUGHLIN: The story you tell in your book is autobiographical. How did you decide on the format of an illustrated children’s book as the way to tell your story?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ANESA KAJTAZOVIC: Over the years, I’ve had a lot of people, including educators, ask me what war was like. Like with most war survivors, it’s something that we didn’t talk much about while growing up in Iowa. It’s a topic I never felt comfortable discussing.
A turning point for me was being asked in the spring of 2020 by a third grade teacher to speak to her class about my war and refugee experiences. After declining that first opportunity, I felt guilty. Something in my heart changed. I think any time we have an opportunity to educate others, especially children, we should do it. After all, how else can we expect others to understand our story and those of millions who’ve gone through something as traumatic as war? </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: Without giving away what happens in the book, can you say a little bit about its subject?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AK: This will be one of the kinds of children’s books on a subject that is difficult to explain to children. My book will make it relatable and easy for anyone to understand how a normal life can change overnight. </div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZJ5jLGhEVfT5JAbYHs0J95EvAXkPiPfDcGROG8ukE6HlBtf8lIYxILp_wjFV_oxP62NqGasXS3YFBdPLn1gWWbJNV5v1WbpAqvjmh1oKOvVdiuDt_qLeOIWxWF6l32L-bG1at2fweJIcN8t7cHzYqfB5ie9LjpSBCGyZfYlQotdig5XyTslMt4V-/s4950/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Aug-Nov%20REV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4950" data-original-width="3221" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZJ5jLGhEVfT5JAbYHs0J95EvAXkPiPfDcGROG8ukE6HlBtf8lIYxILp_wjFV_oxP62NqGasXS3YFBdPLn1gWWbJNV5v1WbpAqvjmh1oKOvVdiuDt_qLeOIWxWF6l32L-bG1at2fweJIcN8t7cHzYqfB5ie9LjpSBCGyZfYlQotdig5XyTslMt4V-/s320/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Aug-Nov%20REV.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><br />JO: In putting this project together, did you find you had to do any research or speak with family members about the experience, or were you able to draw primarily from the memories you have of that time?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AK: This project is solely based on my own war experience. However, I’ve had a couple of my Bosnian friends read it, and it resonated with them as well. This is not just my story; this is a story of millions of children around the world who’ve survived war. </div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: A project like this has to involve a lot of collaboration between author and illustrator. Can you describe how that process worked?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AK: Yes, it was an extensive collaborative process with my illustrator. The most challenging part was that it was all done via writing online. We never spoke or had a meeting. It was a lengthy process, but my illustrator was able to capture my vision well.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-59564885512246686202022-10-17T08:56:00.005-07:002022-10-17T09:00:20.372-07:00An Interview with Gary Eller<div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQpBdfzke4EktxZzBvwdJ3MvIDzDie53WuLedYFZcjl5CEmTtRWhkC4Jk7EIRpwsTbegHY_nh2HEnbT-bwr1a30afWQy2EHrV0ScV9QYPNwJdDJ0HldDrrFmo7Tkt67KOeKq401V8fSQwbwy_P0CSn5jeQCK0VBxZ6BHb6rCw-1Wy_ngpy2QZIIAl/s2107/Gary%20Ecrop2.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2107" data-original-width="1509" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQpBdfzke4EktxZzBvwdJ3MvIDzDie53WuLedYFZcjl5CEmTtRWhkC4Jk7EIRpwsTbegHY_nh2HEnbT-bwr1a30afWQy2EHrV0ScV9QYPNwJdDJ0HldDrrFmo7Tkt67KOeKq401V8fSQwbwy_P0CSn5jeQCK0VBxZ6BHb6rCw-1Wy_ngpy2QZIIAl/s320/Gary%20Ecrop2.jpg" width="229" /></a></div><br /><b>Eller is the author of the novel <a href="https://www.bhcpress.com/Books_Eller_True_North.html" target="_blank"><i>True North</i></a> (BHC Press), which is set in the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota. He’s also the author of the short story collection, <i>Thin Ice and Other Risks</i>. His writing has appeared in many publications, and he is the winner of the River City Award in Fiction, the Fowler Prize, and the Minnesota Voices Award, among others. </b></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Eller will be the featured reader at the <a href="https://chas.uni.edu/langlit/minors/creative-writing-minor/final-thursday-reading-series" target="_blank">Final Thursday Reading Series</a> on October 27 at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The in-person open mic takes place at 7:00 p.m. and Gary Eller takes the stage at 7:30. Eller’s reading will also be simulcast on Zoom Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lduivrj8oG92ZUeGvm7EjSIy9DKb8rkuZ">HERE</a> to register for a Zoom link.</b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><b>Interview by Nolan Rochford. </b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>NOLAN ROCHFORD: You grew up in North Dakota, but have now since moved to Ames, Iowa. How has moving away from your hometown and home region affected the way you write about it? </b><br />GARY ELLER: I've heard more than one prominent writer advise that distance from the subject or setting—geographic, psychic, temporal, and so forth are necessary before one can write with conviction. I agree. I think these conditions help us achieve a certain detachment that allows us to reach into ourselves for a clear understanding of what happened and what we are dealing with. Certainly, the projection of an appropriate verisimilitude is vital, but that is something that does not come from within. Consider the work of nonfictionalists. Newspaper stories, no matter the writing skills of the reporter, are bereft of reflection—and necessarily so. Quality magazines and other periodicals such as the <i>New Yorker</i> can offer more background and a deeper look. But it is in the works of biographers such as David McCullough and the studied interpreters of our culture such as Joan Didion that we must look to for anything like a complete accounting of a matter. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDooNaUIkmBg4bIr3TxYzrFrEIvEIWOObMlS3vxW7o_RmqD2Cgo9YGl2Xjb8tsSTy7vVoqHA-0bOZbsQBlYpCgzs-kSC2oU8nsZxF-v0Y5mRkzp1ugxhKqLdR1Z5qcW4mg_QxyNfWeo0aRaujD9MT4_22ebvjimcQ8BEG0bbliSKn3EFjfvfUfbTv/s612/Eller%20True%20North.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="396" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDooNaUIkmBg4bIr3TxYzrFrEIvEIWOObMlS3vxW7o_RmqD2Cgo9YGl2Xjb8tsSTy7vVoqHA-0bOZbsQBlYpCgzs-kSC2oU8nsZxF-v0Y5mRkzp1ugxhKqLdR1Z5qcW4mg_QxyNfWeo0aRaujD9MT4_22ebvjimcQ8BEG0bbliSKn3EFjfvfUfbTv/s320/Eller%20True%20North.jpeg" width="207" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>NR: <i>True North</i> visits the perspectives and memories of several different characters. Of them, which is the one you enjoyed writing most, and why? Is there any that you found particularly difficult to write, and why?
</b><br />GE: I enjoyed Dolores, the six-times married retired prostitute (as did, apparently my readers considering their remarks). The bizarre unlikelihood of such a character making her way late in life coming from a metropolitan area to find (a kind of) contentment in a rural, conservative location is extreme. It is a lucky writer who comes upon this arrangement of circumstances. Beyond this, Dolores offers a quality of levity usually vital in a traditionally rounded story. In the case of <i>True North</i> this is especially so as the novel tends to be fairly grim. One reviewer called it “a beautiful aching book.” That pleased me very much. </div><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;">The one that gave me difficulty was Richie Lee Peavey. Maybe since he really didn't know who he was, I didn't either. Like most people he was a mixture of good and bad. It's just that he took equivocation to an extreme. Incapable of introspection, Richie Lee could only react. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>NR: Many of the sections in <i>Truth North</i> discuss family and the boundaries within it. When you were writing the book, was this a conscious theme you wished to explore or was it something that emerged in the writing?
</b><br />GE: I did not plan it as a conscious theme. It just seemed to grow from its existence and from the nature of the characters involved. James Salter, a former teacher of mine, said that if you set out to create an individual you will have a character, but if you attempt to create a generic character you’ll have nothing.
Family is the first unit to which a human being experiences allegiance. When that allegiance is threatened by attraction to a power outside it the result is characterized by inner conflict and painful choices. When Harold Peavey decided to refuse to take the step forward he knew there would be personal repercussions. While he was living alone at the time, he still belonged to a particular unit in the form of friends, employers, and people who were close to him who expected him to behave in a certain way. A more personal factor: I didn’t object to the events of Vietnam while they were ongoing partly because my attention was devoted to a tough curriculum in pharmacy school during the violent later peak of that war. Now I regret it. I lost dear friends including my college roommate and in a way I feel as if I abandoned them. Injecting myself into the character of Harold Peavey scarcely makes up for this, but somehow in revealing what I wish had been my attitude all those years ago makes me feel a little better. Thus I've been a protestor forty or fifty years too late. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh33h0Bp0nyXV5E6ZBCb6p6VDZWnh4DINaR-I25MMmATUNmphxN21BsWzagERPB6ZOXTTG-tshkrwgSTpRD-BLr5ZkIrFolHktRu4mXb-5rNFQpJKv4tZWgjrptc7lXakC4-ETBj7qGAwc-GvQkmxNQgb5Ren9aITCtpPS5s6nWU0DFRG53CSAHl1_8/s4950/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Aug-Nov%20REV.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4950" data-original-width="3221" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh33h0Bp0nyXV5E6ZBCb6p6VDZWnh4DINaR-I25MMmATUNmphxN21BsWzagERPB6ZOXTTG-tshkrwgSTpRD-BLr5ZkIrFolHktRu4mXb-5rNFQpJKv4tZWgjrptc7lXakC4-ETBj7qGAwc-GvQkmxNQgb5Ren9aITCtpPS5s6nWU0DFRG53CSAHl1_8/w260-h400/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Aug-Nov%20REV.jpg" width="260" /></a></b></div><b><br /></b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>NR: A large part of your novel is dedicated to the discussion of war and the way it interacts between generations, with both characters struggling to come to terms with their draft duties in two different wars. Why did you choose to include these struggles in the writing of <i>True North</i>?</b><br />GE: This is also an instance where the personal intrudes with the make believe. Remarkably, discussion of great events was almost never discussed around my family's dinner table. My father was rejected for the military for physical reasons while I managed to run out the clock by staying in school. I can only guess what his attitude was about Vietnam. My guess is that because we lived in a patriotic and fundamentalist community he would have wanted me to serve if for no other reason than to maintain appearances.
Though a complicated and compromised pacifist by nature, I see in my vivid memories of the sixties, a reflection of our society today with opposing factions both claiming the moral high ground, and to some extent each doing so with some justification. Historically, we see this has happened often—maybe continually—through the ages. It would not take a cynic to equate the history of humankind with the history of war. </div>
<p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>NR: In the past, you’ve published short stories and your collection, <i>Thin Ice and Other Risks</i>. What are you working on now? Any plans to revisit the Turtle Mountain region in your writing?
</b><br />GE: I’ve had readers say they'd like to see a sequel to <i>True North</i>. I did leave the precise fates of certain characters open to eventual resolution—Sam Morinville, Vickie Breen, and others. But I'm not actively working on a project like that. (I've had feelers wondering about a film for the book which is keeping my attention on <i>True North</i>.) Evoking the first question of the interview, I'd like to point out that I lived in Alaska for several years and now that I'm entirely separated from that state, I find myself thinking about story lines. Also, I'm a fan of baseball and the game's history. I have ideas for novels and some research roughed out on both these topics for when the time comes.
</p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-10854337327566910942022-09-26T08:36:00.001-07:002022-09-26T08:36:22.112-07:00Jim O'Loughlin at FTRS with new SF novel, The Cord<p>Thursday 29 September: come in-person for the open mic at 7:00. Stay for the 7:30 featured reading, which will also be <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lduivrj8oG92ZUeGvm7EjSIy9DKb8rkuZ" target="_blank">live Zoomcast</a>. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPetMuj-bvKagkBMeMhwkb7vmdTC-xvhlRGMnh3Z55ofTiM1kqFduhYvGKpCQOCl1DiTk_ZLoSgHgeD9fSgpXv7nTkzTBLriR1jrp-tpxJEmLbdSFxmjQqnBMijL1xu3YMxlxM5mHdv5yAUw7ycTswZaFuOJsaru9eka5OyOlDGnqt7NLMSICMfCxH/s792/Sep%2022%20flyer%20O'Loughlin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="792" data-original-width="612" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPetMuj-bvKagkBMeMhwkb7vmdTC-xvhlRGMnh3Z55ofTiM1kqFduhYvGKpCQOCl1DiTk_ZLoSgHgeD9fSgpXv7nTkzTBLriR1jrp-tpxJEmLbdSFxmjQqnBMijL1xu3YMxlxM5mHdv5yAUw7ycTswZaFuOJsaru9eka5OyOlDGnqt7NLMSICMfCxH/w494-h640/Sep%2022%20flyer%20O'Loughlin.jpg" width="494" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-64163239602796786782022-08-30T08:21:00.000-07:002022-08-30T08:21:07.817-07:00Worth of the Harvest Release Reading<p>If you didn't get to attend Jeff Sears's release reading for <i>The Worth of the Harvest: James Hearst and His Poetry</i>, you can now stream it online. Click <a href="https://finalthursdaypress.blogspot.com/p/the-worth-of-harvest-james-hearst-and.html" target="_blank">HERE</a> to find out more about the first full-length literary biography of James Hearst. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/teN2UStNRpk" width="320" youtube-src-id="teN2UStNRpk"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-4196185410297800322022-08-08T06:24:00.003-07:002022-08-15T10:43:30.923-07:00Anne Myles on What Woman That Was<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTwabwYvbE1YHxPwon6oNUA7jZJfp-rT7bFYICQt_CFEnNvRSVEVgmhRxm0qFPPc9CpF7Xpv0T732eKjRjOnOzEylvkrAPb5UZqgAAsxhTmib9fa1umLcxPiPhJfX4SzL6QuRPUj7ZTdTLxqN_GlyezWgzWm3dcL4ra81X1bxoDYxxtGaoAIQp34B/s1285/Back%20cover%20photo.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1285" data-original-width="1025" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifTwabwYvbE1YHxPwon6oNUA7jZJfp-rT7bFYICQt_CFEnNvRSVEVgmhRxm0qFPPc9CpF7Xpv0T732eKjRjOnOzEylvkrAPb5UZqgAAsxhTmib9fa1umLcxPiPhJfX4SzL6QuRPUj7ZTdTLxqN_GlyezWgzWm3dcL4ra81X1bxoDYxxtGaoAIQp34B/s320/Back%20cover%20photo.jpg" width="255" /></a></b></div><b><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Anne Myles is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Northern Iowa and received an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poems have appeared in <i>On the Seawall</i>, <i>Whale Road Review</i>, <i>Lavender Review</i>, <i>Ekphrastic Review</i> and numerous other journals. She currently lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. Learn more at annemyles.com. </b></div></b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Myles’s new chapbook <i><a href="http://finalthursdaypress.blogspot.com/p/what-woman-that-was-poems-for-mary-dyer.html" target="_blank">What Woman That Was: Poems for Mary Dyer</a></i> will launch on August 25 at the first Final Thursday Reading Series event of the season. Join us in the beautiful Hearst Sculpture Garden (rain location: Mae Latta Hall) for an open mic at 7:00 and Anne Myles at 7:30. Myles’s reading will also be simulcast on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lduivrj8oG92ZUeGvm7EjSIy9DKb8rkuZ" target="_blank">HERE</a> to register for a Zoom link. <a href="http://finalthursdaypress.blogspot.com/p/what-woman-that-was-poems-for-mary-dyer.html" target="_blank">Pre-orders of <i>What Woman That Was</i> are available directly from Final Thursday Press and via Amazon.com. </a></b></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview by Jim O’Loughlin </b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JIM O'LOUGHLIN: Who was Mary Dyer and how did you first become interested in her?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">ANNE MYLES: Mary Barrett Dyer, born around 1611, grew up in England and came to Boston with her husband and first surviving child in 1635. Her story has several distinct acts. She was a follower of the lay spiritual teacher Anne Hutchinson, and along with other followers her family was sentenced to banishment from Massachusetts in 1637. In 1638, when Hutchinson was excommunicated from the Boston church, Dyer drew public attention when she followed Hutchinson out of the meetinghouse, and it was revealed that she had had a deformed stillbirth, a so-called “monster,” with Hutchinson as one of her midwives. Around 1651, after living in Newport, Rhode Island for a number of years, Mary Dyer left her husband and six children behind and went to England alone, where she stayed for six years. In 1657 she returned to New England as a Quaker. She was repeatedly imprisoned as she violated the anti-Quaker laws of Massachusetts and other colonies. This ultimately led to her being taken to the scaffold twice – first in 1659, when she was reprieved at the last minute, then in 1660, when she was in fact hanged. She was the only woman among the four Quakers hanged in Massachusetts in 1659-1661, whom Quakers refer to as the New England Martyrs.</div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"> As someone who was active as a Quaker in my early adulthood, and as a scholar of early American dissent, I knew who Mary Dyer was. But somehow it was only around 1999 when the story of her following Anne Hutchinson out of the church really hit me. A woman’s radical act of loyalty to another woman: there is nothing else like it in the records of that time. I saw it as an act of love, and it resonated with my own devotion to an older woman who had been an important guide to me, and whom I lost, as Dyer ultimately lost Hutchinson. From that moment I was driven to write about Dyer, to claim her as someone I intuitively understood. She became my personal doorway into the early American past. </div></span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDk7cXBcOKiMt-3gqtA0W-KyIrfCmJ5ShGtJatHLA7uSGhs644TT7KsJT_8pf3Dzu2K6NDiT1bP1QwqdrxHhFXs5FBglTmmFFDPxMsKgGgqZR2IuwFGNjObMiYEyrFCl-PdXLD2WkXRy0orbpNExvZSZMcc4EaXdY354v71WYjtLyXR32nYF3XTf65/s2550/What%20Woman%20cover.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2550" data-original-width="1648" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDk7cXBcOKiMt-3gqtA0W-KyIrfCmJ5ShGtJatHLA7uSGhs644TT7KsJT_8pf3Dzu2K6NDiT1bP1QwqdrxHhFXs5FBglTmmFFDPxMsKgGgqZR2IuwFGNjObMiYEyrFCl-PdXLD2WkXRy0orbpNExvZSZMcc4EaXdY354v71WYjtLyXR32nYF3XTf65/s320/What%20Woman%20cover.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />JO: You’ve published academic articles on Dyer. How was it different to write poetry about her?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AM: I’ve always believed that scholarship encodes deeply personal concerns, at least in terms of what we are drawn to study, and I’d articulated some of the private reasons for my interest in Dyer in my academic writing. But around 2017 I realized that I needed to write truthfully about my life without the distancing of an academic approach – and I saw nearly simultaneously that the way I could start to do this was to interweave my life with Dyer’s much more interesting one. That started out as a hybrid memoir project, which I worked on for about a year. But somehow the singular narrative trajectory – her life moving inevitably towards her death, while mine was moving towards what? – became problematic. When in 2018 I transitioned back to poetry, my original creative form in my earlier life, I realized how freeing it was. I could write multiple poems, multiple truths, multiple perspectives, as I explored Dyer’s life and my feelings about it. (I write directly about my life in poems outside this project.) Beyond providing a fluid way for me to consider Mary Dyer, my poems about her, many of them written during my MFA studies, became a rich field for exploring different lyric styles and strategies of address. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghhtN9WceVAiT3TB7VzMD-j_szKKQKxcz-dNGDoeredIrr4sYBneReYpTRkKaOsj3lJdrc4Lzw0uJ9zR3DCGcd-MkoztpKhd_D0pjicQhW1KHZS6GIQACoscQOoHGgqHVlrWyNNn2piWeZlbyN_eOpQwxRR2M5H2ASbWRELHSN7I4lsqp1JiDJWEv/s3224/20191201_084402.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3224" data-original-width="2376" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjghhtN9WceVAiT3TB7VzMD-j_szKKQKxcz-dNGDoeredIrr4sYBneReYpTRkKaOsj3lJdrc4Lzw0uJ9zR3DCGcd-MkoztpKhd_D0pjicQhW1KHZS6GIQACoscQOoHGgqHVlrWyNNn2piWeZlbyN_eOpQwxRR2M5H2ASbWRELHSN7I4lsqp1JiDJWEv/s320/20191201_084402.jpg" width="236" /></a></div><br />JO: A number of the poems in this collection are “persona poems,” written from the perspective of Dyer. How did you decide to take that approach? What were the challenges in finding the language to represent her immediate experience?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AM: Persona poetry about real or imagined historical figures is a very popular mode in recent years– book-length collections included. So it seemed an obvious approach to try. But the first attempts were terrifying to me as a scholar! Up to that point I had always carefully written about Dyer from the outside, marking the distance of my own subject position, as academics say, and making clear when I was speculating without textual evidence. To enter into her imaginatively and make stuff up felt really transgressive – I felt like they would revoke my PhD! But of course the transgression felt thrilling and freeing too. Yet even now it makes me a little queasy . . . I think the book most people would have written about Dyer would be all persona poetry. But I couldn’t do that; ultimately I am less drawn to historical fiction as a mode and more drawn to writing about and around what is known about her, while still speaking as myself.</div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"> I never struggled with finding a voice for Mary–that was always fun. I think many years of immersion in seventeenth-century discourse and my love of early Quaker thought and writing made it come naturally to me. I wanted her to speak in terms she would have known, and in a voice that evoked her period without being cloyingly archaic. I feel a resistance to persona poems where the characters “talk in poetry” or think like contemporary subjects. I guess that’s the scholar in me still. </div></span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: Some of my favorite poems in the book are the ones that directly address both the connection you feel to Dyer and the historical and ideological distance that separates you. Those poems made me wonder what you feel you learned about Dyer (and maybe about yourself) during the process of writing this book. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">AM: What an interesting question! I had reflected on Dyer and the grounds of my identification with her so long, it’s hard to say what I learned about connection and distance during the actual writing of the poems. What I learned, I think, is how essential it is to me to keep articulating that nexus – that the issues of how we long for the past, how we seek connection to it, how the dead look back at us resistantly when we look at them are all a key part of my material and my distinctive style as a poet interested in history. I’ve now drawn on this perspective writing about other figures as well. A big moment was when I came upon the approach of addressing Dyer directly; I’d say this became my favorite way of writing about her, since it allowed me to put the problems of relationship right up front.</div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"> Yet I suppose I did learn a lot about Dyer’s life, specifically through imagining parts of it that aren’t in the record. The Dyer I’ve created feels very real to me now; I sometimes have to remind myself that she is a product of my own mind! I feel closest to her when I summon her embodied experience. Whatever our ideological differences, I know what a stone ledge felt like against her arms; I know at some point her nose dripped when she leaned forward in her kitchen garden. </div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />JO: Why do you want other people to know about Dyer? In what ways do you regard her as a significant figure in the present?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqkjMUcfW0UueGF0FbVMMYqt9jB5j0qRJi14PA3_z22UYImI5xUDoQSMHrjxKSJFncXpvPp4DZFFPtwH8OKV3rBYL1CHWAcRu3QXeOoa6F9lTvfidiqfM7GkQptUelA6wVwb2NLj-HLlBpFJoZ76RSlvgxDcs4FcLgIbdhpuNzTw2wEje33RTRm3G/s4950/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Aug-Nov%20REV.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4950" data-original-width="3221" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnqkjMUcfW0UueGF0FbVMMYqt9jB5j0qRJi14PA3_z22UYImI5xUDoQSMHrjxKSJFncXpvPp4DZFFPtwH8OKV3rBYL1CHWAcRu3QXeOoa6F9lTvfidiqfM7GkQptUelA6wVwb2NLj-HLlBpFJoZ76RSlvgxDcs4FcLgIbdhpuNzTw2wEje33RTRm3G/s320/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Aug-Nov%20REV.png" width="208" /></a></div><br />AM: The story of Dyer’s life–her courage, her agency, her allegiance to those she chose as her people–is remarkable, inspiring, perhaps confounding in any era. Though she is a venerated figure among Quakers, and known to those who study early New England, I want everyone to hear about her. But she has resonated for me at a new level in the years since 2016. Her persistence in witnessing against injustice seems incredibly relevant. As a high-status woman in her society (note that she was always “Mistress Dyer,” the elite designation, never “Goodwife Dyer”), she found powerful ways to deploy her privilege, to make an impact with it, even if her choices led to her death. I realize too how much the struggles she was involved in speak to border politics in the present: who is allowed into a colony or country? What is the penalty for violating the law? And as I’ve grown older, the fact that Dyer was herself what we would call middle-aged (she was about 49 when she died) has also felt important. Celebrating the older woman as heroine, as someone actively determining the course of her life, is moving and meaningful to me.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-45967500380415954002022-07-18T13:36:00.002-07:002022-07-18T13:36:38.609-07:00An Interview with Jeff Sears<p style="text-align: justify;"><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG395Cc1Xtxx9lzWaxVdH5rB_92rAf1Y5ykrzBcn45Ik9xgRPrMkt6tYZOJVNuV4bAJmWQHo97JZhd5WwIOipqvD_dm-w4pn43bShCBwHWfVgf5r7-YV9CcE97RsmHLpsoTzEiSCxvVwWrCuUMMTJUdXwMTj4P1uHGiEDL8ws96y21dGBjT_xy-9tv/s2277/The%20Worth%20of%20the%20Harvest%20Cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2277" data-original-width="1519" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG395Cc1Xtxx9lzWaxVdH5rB_92rAf1Y5ykrzBcn45Ik9xgRPrMkt6tYZOJVNuV4bAJmWQHo97JZhd5WwIOipqvD_dm-w4pn43bShCBwHWfVgf5r7-YV9CcE97RsmHLpsoTzEiSCxvVwWrCuUMMTJUdXwMTj4P1uHGiEDL8ws96y21dGBjT_xy-9tv/s320/The%20Worth%20of%20the%20Harvest%20Cover.jpg" width="213" /></a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><b>On Sunday August 7 at 1:30 p.m., you are invited to a release reading of <i>The Worth of the Harvest</i></b><b><i>: James Hearst and His Poetry</i></b><b> with author Jeff Sears. In honor of what would have been James Hearst's 122nd birthday, the Hearst Center for the Arts and Final Thursday Press are teaming up to celebrate the life and work of James Hearst at his former residence. Come for the reading, stick around afterwards for a slice of birthday cake in honor of James Hearst.</b></b></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><i> The Worth of the Harvest</i> is the first book-length literary biography of Iowa’s celebrated farmer-poet, James Hearst (1900-83). Author Jeff Sears has been James Hearst’s biographer since 1977. In this book, he explores Hearst’s life and literary work, interweaving biographical information with insights gleaned from a careful reading of Hearst’s verse. </b></div></b><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b>Interview conducted by Jim O’Loughlin of Final Thursday Press </b></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br />JIM O’LOUGHLIN: Can you say a little bit about how you first got to know James Hearst?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JEFF SEARS: I grew up in Waterloo, six miles from Hearst’s home in Cedar Falls. But I got to know him in a roundabout way. In 1971 I was in college on the east coast when a classmate asked me, did I know James Hearst? No, I said, who is he? An Iowa farmer-poet who was a friend of Robert Frost’s. My classmate had run across a reference to Hearst in one of Frost’s published letters. Fast forward six years, and I’m an assistant professor of English at Iowa State University. I had learned a lot about James Hearst in the meantime, and I got the idea to interview him and publish some scholarly articles about him. When I approached him, he was very cordial, and a series of interviews with him and his wife Meryl followed. I was also able to interview other Iowa literary figures who knew him, namely Paul Engle and Ferner Nuhn. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXweOM0_I3k0QHTMuAkmZSnBv7ROXKCRJY0pYzAkG01v4-DVI0vrYrcQC9vJHmgK_OJpUKg1WMKPnFBmJug-qdU6i5DmMkwY7-DzpC3tKOWiX1amYmeBmxnD0gKx0sv0_jIbnrxsvq6QgUxyf9OBoV_riP1zsyZC54iV4Okk7xsE2Nl4d5Fh145tgR/s1028/Jeffry%20Sears.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1028" data-original-width="771" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXweOM0_I3k0QHTMuAkmZSnBv7ROXKCRJY0pYzAkG01v4-DVI0vrYrcQC9vJHmgK_OJpUKg1WMKPnFBmJug-qdU6i5DmMkwY7-DzpC3tKOWiX1amYmeBmxnD0gKx0sv0_jIbnrxsvq6QgUxyf9OBoV_riP1zsyZC54iV4Okk7xsE2Nl4d5Fh145tgR/s320/Jeffry%20Sears.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>JO: What initially drew you to Hearst’s poetry? Over the years, has that stayed constant or do you now find yourself drawn to different aspects of his work?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JS: What drew me to Hearst was his connection to Robert Frost. Was Hearst an imitator or an original who happened to share the moniker farmer-poet? I found to my delight that Hearst was an original. What most impresses me about Hearst’s poetry is the variety of styles he mastered and made his own. His early work is traditional, and his later work is modern. But it’s always his voice. My admiration of Hearst’s work has remained constant. I’ve tried my hand at poetry too, so I appreciate what he did and how he made it look easy. It’s not! </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: Though Hearst wrote autobiographically in <i>My Shadow Below Me</i> and <i>Time Like a Furrow</i>, that work is very different from a literary biography like <i>The Worth of the Harvest</i>. Can you talk about how the approach of your project is not like what a reader would find in a memoir?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JS: My project traces Hearst’s development as a writer and shows how his life experience informed his work. It also shows how something can be learned about his life and emotions through his writing, though he was usually careful to distance himself at least to some degree from the persona who speaks in a poem. He did not discuss his literary career in any depth in his autobiographical writings.
<br /><i><span> </span>My Shadow Below Me</i> and <i>Time Like a Furrow</i> were available when I was working on my project. But I decided to rely on the interviews I mentioned, as well as my own research into Hearst’s correspondence that has been collected at several university libraries. To be honest, I don’t think Hearst did his own life story justice. Hearst’s life would be interesting and inspiring even if he had never written anything. I have tried to relate his many challenges and how he responded to them in an immediate and compelling way. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlMAwP4mfpJ43aHne3yarsFZtDelFssGMTlDNQyy5GZHlBOFD3-mQFTx3fyvC3T8p70qOcQf0W0ap7y1rBpmtpjhNFvHuuBzSLbSx_mgYNYtoOlMxW5wlnGvYBjelE2BxBnYi9AncTFDR36-mFunh9H0HaJuSkbjNhc9dhBxyz75NjN7n6PsqAgn3/s951/James%20Hearst%20and%20Jeff%20Sears%202.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="951" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlMAwP4mfpJ43aHne3yarsFZtDelFssGMTlDNQyy5GZHlBOFD3-mQFTx3fyvC3T8p70qOcQf0W0ap7y1rBpmtpjhNFvHuuBzSLbSx_mgYNYtoOlMxW5wlnGvYBjelE2BxBnYi9AncTFDR36-mFunh9H0HaJuSkbjNhc9dhBxyz75NjN7n6PsqAgn3/s320/James%20Hearst%20and%20Jeff%20Sears%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>JO: Part of what is significant about <i>The Worth of the Harvest</i> is that you are able to look at James Hearst’s work with an appreciative yet critical eye, seeing some limitations in <i>Man and His Field</i> but also pointing to <i>Limited View</i> as one of Hearst's best mature works. Is there a part of the book that you feel particularly good about or that you feel highlights an aspect of Hearst’s work that has been undervalued?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">JS: Of course, I’m a big fan of James Hearst and his poetry. And I would say that as a whole his poetry has been undervalued in terms of a national reputation. But there’s a reason that he is not regarded as being in the top echelon of American poets. His language can be too prosy and his subject matter stuck in the ordinary. The clearest examples of this are the poems in <i>Man and His Field</i>. On the other hand, the poems in <i>Limited View</i> consistently exceed expectations. I would point to the poem “Truth,” which many feel is his best poem. It is a brilliant rendering of the farmer’s plain-spoken, exasperated, even sarcastic tone as he schools his neighbor in his hard-earned empirical outlook: “the connection with a thing/is the only truth that I know of.” <br /><span> </span>One last thing, I want to take the opportunity to thank you and all the others who helped me publish the book. Thanks to Scott Cawelti, Cherie Dargan, Barbara Lounsberry, Heather Skeens and Hannah McConkey.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-59777157266907062402022-04-19T08:11:00.001-07:002022-04-19T08:11:12.053-07:00An Interview with Jesse Swan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_YiczijJjMKt3sHd7xa76hvHDZ89Q_-dPWIxmnLAgaZ_KYBRbw6uhT4evAuHcI8XzPDFm1wsDzsAhIVbW5IzUYqXgtpXYcgr2AIYIRvF_yiaOBdx2vb6CV1YMt_cknjo4MmiK3yAgkZOqY4rmxHij_QrjraO2HTj8wJtGCUibns2qjH8OaocVBReV/s648/Jesse%20Swan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="432" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_YiczijJjMKt3sHd7xa76hvHDZ89Q_-dPWIxmnLAgaZ_KYBRbw6uhT4evAuHcI8XzPDFm1wsDzsAhIVbW5IzUYqXgtpXYcgr2AIYIRvF_yiaOBdx2vb6CV1YMt_cknjo4MmiK3yAgkZOqY4rmxHij_QrjraO2HTj8wJtGCUibns2qjH8OaocVBReV/s320/Jesse%20Swan.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Jesse Swan has been a professor of English at UNI since 1998, where his research and teaching has focused on Renaissance and early modern English literature and culture. He has recently turned to poetry, and his creative writing has appeared as part of the Telepoem Booth project. He will be the featured reader at the final event of the 2022-23 Final Thursday Reading Series on April 28 at the Hearst Center for the Arts. The night starts at 7:00 p.m. with an open mic. Attendees are welcome to share their best five minutes of poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction. Jesse Swan takes the stage at 7:30. Swan’s featured reading will also be live Zoomcasted. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/j/95448142981?pwd=b1lIRHNORWtSNGhFYTBNL3Vod1kyQT09" target="_blank">HERE </a>for a link to the 7:30 featured reading.<br /></b><b><br />The following interview was conducted by Jim O’Loughlin. </b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b>Jim O’Loughlin: For much of your career you’ve been a literary critic and literary historian. What led to your interest in writing poetry? </b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b>Jesse Swan:</b> I guess I kind of see them as of a piece. Of a piece with reading, which is what I love. There are lots of identities I feel, but “reader” has to be one of the most longstanding and perhaps the keenest. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span> </span> About reading and writing poetry. Hmm. I have composed poetry as a practice of reading for almost as long as I’ve been reading. One way I get into an author or work is to compose poetry inspired by the author or work. Sometimes it’s the historical moment I compose a poem about. I have written other forms and genres as a practice of reading, but “poetry” is the main one, perhaps because I love reading poetry so much. Indeed, most works I love I call “poetry,” even if they’re novels, such as Joyce’s <i>Ulysses</i>, or plays, like Sarah Ruhl’s <i>Eurydice</i>, or essays, like David Rakoff’s <i>Don’t Get Too Comfortable</i>.
. . . . [thoughtful pause] . . . </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span> </span> A few years ago, and I’m not at all sure why or how, but it was something like a tickling bee in my invisible bonnet, it occurred to me to see about “completing” one of my poems or several of my poems. I had never thought about completing a poem any more than I think of completing a reading, but suddenly I did. I feel that a poem is completed when it is read or heard by someone else. I think this is what has, most immediately, led to my circulating some of my poems. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: Do you find connections between your creative and critical work, or is your poetry from a very different part of your imagination?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JS: </b>Oh, yes, absolutely. I know most people think and feel that a scholarly work of bibliography, for example, and a romantic sonnet are two entirely different and unrelated forms of experience and knowledge and expression, but I see them both as entirely imaginative, contingent, and humane. It was imagining the various facts informing W. W. Greg’s theory of copy-text the way I imagine poetry, notably poetry heavy in imagery and teeming with metonymy, for example, that I came to really understand Greg’s theory and principles of copy-text. Similarly, considering the vast possibilities of a rich poem, such as <i>Paradise Lost</i>, the way I imagine the myriad interpretations of the historiography of Michel Foucault, for example, curiously liberates the “poetry” from the conceptual and experiential confines it is sometimes placed in.
In my scholarship, I have hoped to provide reliable facts for others to use in contemplating all the things we consider when reading literature, and in my criticism, I have aimed at providing certain moral and ethical interpretations of authors and works that I feel match the feelings and ideas of the authors. With composing and completing poetry, I hope to inspire people to read and to compose poems and to think, generally, poetically. </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ocxbLj1yd3vwyLzSQK_RnxmOkWekNXtgT0wb7Lk3Rqdw4VzG6evSu60oLWcJZ5L3LIxVYCb73YCENjnrFncBhIXMn6SNMpskE9ltebJ964T1OiXVWmC_50ek-FvAUpyCNY1ZM2Dtryeh1xO3jac57aKhLlIIiHvzYKoF-HoY4XD_Ux4s8VC5khC9/s4906/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Jan-Apr.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4906" data-original-width="3101" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4ocxbLj1yd3vwyLzSQK_RnxmOkWekNXtgT0wb7Lk3Rqdw4VzG6evSu60oLWcJZ5L3LIxVYCb73YCENjnrFncBhIXMn6SNMpskE9ltebJ964T1OiXVWmC_50ek-FvAUpyCNY1ZM2Dtryeh1xO3jac57aKhLlIIiHvzYKoF-HoY4XD_Ux4s8VC5khC9/s320/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Jan-Apr.png" width="202" /></a></div><br />JO: What poets have influenced your creative writing? <br /></b><b>JS:</b> I know you must mean published poets, and I will mention a couple, yet I want to give primary place here to my kindergarten teacher, Sister Dolores Muñoz of the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. Of the many influences she had on me, one was giving me the sense of being a poet. I have always remembered Sister Dolores saying to me, approvingly and with remarkable affection, “why, you are a poet.” I was writing some elementary reading material, and I had no idea that I was being observed, until I heard her gentle exclamation. When I feel that I am no poet, I remember this moment.
Since Sister Dolores, many others have influenced me, notably Naomi Shihab Nye, who used to give poetry readings and workshops when I was a kid and young adult, and Alberto Rios, who was a professor of poetry when I was in graduate school. As much as in their poetry and in their advice for writing -- and reading -- poetry, their softly charismatic presence has charmed and inspired me. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: Kudos to Sister Dolores! Do you see your work eventually resulting in a collection, or do you think of your poems as standalone efforts?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JS:</b> I think the poems I select to circulate in order to be completed by readers or auditors are really best read in a collection. A collection might be the sort of reading I’ll be doing for the Final Thursday Reading Series, but mostly, I think, as a chapbook or other sort of group of several poems. That said, mostly people encounter my poems as isolated from others, as in workshops or magazine publication, and this has its own curious effects.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-72128377340960253292022-03-22T20:42:00.002-07:002022-03-22T20:42:41.244-07:00An Interview with Kathy Fish<p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6hcgGC6M9B6eBaptx7tviDRZ3b3c5BLwTKtmKMWRmEnZlAuemJHf_CG1yjapkHGz9AblIU8zC6ryKNLjq3ooxVp4E128sakyQqTKb3iEhDPRC9E1qohbniFbQGtiOpSPekqseViSPAZTgfwB6HMvoJ3mRsOplBTnREBa9lGfAZQBdQS3_sQ_QzZS/s862/Fish.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="862" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6hcgGC6M9B6eBaptx7tviDRZ3b3c5BLwTKtmKMWRmEnZlAuemJHf_CG1yjapkHGz9AblIU8zC6ryKNLjq3ooxVp4E128sakyQqTKb3iEhDPRC9E1qohbniFbQGtiOpSPekqseViSPAZTgfwB6HMvoJ3mRsOplBTnREBa9lGfAZQBdQS3_sQ_QzZS/s320/Fish.jpeg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b><br />Kathy Fish is the author of several collections of fiction including <i>Together We Can Bury It</i> and <i>Wild Life: Collected Works 2003-2018</i>. A UNI alumna and Waterloo native, Fish’s work has appeared in the annual volumes <i>The Best Small Fictions</i> and <i>The Best American Non-required Reading</i>. She also edits the free newsletter, <i><a href="https://artofflashfiction.substack.com/" target="_blank">The Art of Flash Fiction</a></i> and teaches in the MFA program at Regis University.
<br /><br />This month’s Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on March 31 at the Hearst Center for the Arts. The in-person open mic starts at 7 p.m. Fish’s featured reading starts at 7:30. The featured reading can also be streamed live on Zoom. Click <a href="https://uni.zoom.us/j/95078797727?pwd=cDEzdGhOczhVNm0wZmx5M3kyMGt4UT09" target="_blank">HERE</a> for a link.
<br /><br />This interview was conducted by Hannah McConkey.</b> <p></p><p><b>HANNAH MCCONKEY: You were an undergraduate Psychology major at UNI. What was your path to becoming a fiction writer, and did anything in your UNI experience help you toward that?
<br />KATHY FISH:</b> I had always enjoyed writing stories even as a young child. My teachers always encouraged my writing in English classes both in high school and at UNI. I just never considered myself a “writer” or thought of fiction writing as a career. I was fascinated with psychology so it was a natural fit for me as an undergraduate. And it’s definitely a “writer thing” to be interested in the workings of the human heart and mind. I loved the psychology classes I took at UNI. I do think they contributed to my ability to create characters facing a variety of personal and interpersonal conflicts in fictional worlds.
After graduating, I worked in several jobs related to the field of psychology. Then I got married and we spent a few years living in Australia. It was there, after the birth of my youngest child, that I signed up for my first creative writing class. That’s when I truly discovered “my tribe” and became passionate about writing stories. I knew I wanted to pursue writing seriously. </p><p><b>HM:</b> <b>How did you come to develop a specialization in flash fiction? </b><br /><b>KF</b>: So as I said, I only started writing with serious intent after the birth of my youngest (fourth) child. I was a very busy mom and my husband traveled a great deal. My writing time was stolen moments at my older son’s cricket practice or in the car waiting to pick the kids up from school or while the younger children were napping. I wanted to finish things so my stories naturally were very short. At some point, I discovered there was actually a thing called “flash fiction” and that I’d been writing it all along! </p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglXlaD9uHR_gfH8PcLa4G10MGn1b46IIsFuMA0fpuMKOuQS_v1s9AyrCaAbFuuVuvgVAUpx56Z19nXvYhBsPIp5J7Ob0FmjTQtT6sLmJf5_fDfVH4DM6rjV4W7VAzOsteSvrLaIL0LcmGss6xp-Fe0Un_2bshyexJ9-_4NCZtBr2j3-Ky7Td-upQTy/s499/Wild%20Life.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="326" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglXlaD9uHR_gfH8PcLa4G10MGn1b46IIsFuMA0fpuMKOuQS_v1s9AyrCaAbFuuVuvgVAUpx56Z19nXvYhBsPIp5J7Ob0FmjTQtT6sLmJf5_fDfVH4DM6rjV4W7VAzOsteSvrLaIL0LcmGss6xp-Fe0Un_2bshyexJ9-_4NCZtBr2j3-Ky7Td-upQTy/s320/Wild%20Life.jpg" width="209" /></a></b></div><b><br />HM: You regularly offer workshops on flash fiction. What are those like and how did you come to develop them?
<br />KF</b>: I’d begun using the blog on my website to post flash stories and analyze them and offer writing prompts. A couple of my blog followers urged me to teach classes, so I offered the first one back in 2015. I figured out a way to use a Wordpress site to present materials asynchronously and for writers to post their work and give each other feedback. The classes are generative and positive feedback only. Anyway, they became very popular very quickly and now I have to offer registrations via a lottery system! I thoroughly enjoy teaching both online and in person. <p></p><p><b>HM: Several of your stories have surprise endings, such as "The Children Called Him Yuck-Yuck.” Do you intentionally try to write stories that will have twists or is that something that develops as you are drafting them?
<br />KF:</b> I almost never write to create a twist ending, but sometimes in the process, something unexpected or twisty presents itself and I run with it. Sometimes the twist endings come across as forced or unnatural and readers are pretty good at picking up on that. I like an ending that somehow resonates or casts new light or meaning on the story in a way that lingers in the reader’s mind. </p><p><b>HM: A number of your stories focus on people who are just trying to go about their lives while dealing with stressful, and oftentimes, devastating situations. Is that kind of writing difficult or cathartic?
<br />KF:</b> It’s absolutely both difficult and cathartic! But for me, it’s so compelling as a storyteller to show characters as they struggle with challenging, heartbreaking, life-changing situations.
Author Kazuo Ishiguro said, “But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels for me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it also feel that way for you?”
It’s how we connect with readers on a visceral level. I love how beautifully this poem by Sean Thomas Dougherty speaks to this idea: </p><p><i>Why Bother? </i></p><p>Because right now, there is <span> </span> someone <br /><br />Out there with </p><p>a wound <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span> </span>in the exact shape
</p><p><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span>of your words. </p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZ0eptKxu_dTBg19clwU7FW3d_zUwdrSm6EPS0nUQPo4A52Ss2DKrpKIAMu7kg2-QQghOTxEBG6UNyS6AWR3w1yfxn39ww_hZsD6mmoTQYp6WGHFG8_X1Qf-SpfKhmFjoB5oxwz0fAfkmrmp8UqVmpF0buWqnK1-jIREuH4oZAiuHq0VRhdxZ6x6x/s4906/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Jan-Apr.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4906" data-original-width="3101" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCZ0eptKxu_dTBg19clwU7FW3d_zUwdrSm6EPS0nUQPo4A52Ss2DKrpKIAMu7kg2-QQghOTxEBG6UNyS6AWR3w1yfxn39ww_hZsD6mmoTQYp6WGHFG8_X1Qf-SpfKhmFjoB5oxwz0fAfkmrmp8UqVmpF0buWqnK1-jIREuH4oZAiuHq0VRhdxZ6x6x/s320/Final%20Thurs%202022%20Jan-Apr.png" width="202" /></a></b></div><b><br />HM: What current project are you working on?
<br />KF:</b> I’m very busy these days working on a novella-in-flash and I’m also writing a flash fiction craft book based on my Fast Flash workshops. Some of what’s in the craft book can be found in my monthly newsletter. Those who are interested can subscribe for free here: <a href="https://artofflashfiction.substack.com/" target="_blank">The Art of Flash Fiction</a>.
<p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-82767093573657651792022-03-10T07:17:00.004-08:002022-03-10T14:04:45.144-08:00Listen for free: Best of Eddie Bowles<p><span face=""Yanone Kaffeesatz", Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; text-align: right;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://eddiebowles.hearnow.com/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="2202" data-original-width="2200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh45GaHxgLZCs_EY5ugG4fIhk4fljsh7GL3mbsIbLiye9EheuEtWrdQQj_v0q-vcc-OMom2OGU425JRfGflbrqhIeVVH75TkEgSEFhWt8kZdgIe4_GPHPNwXg3LQwHLnwIlP5E8D6_h0U3_r6RFzvYoqhSIkCvGf4bIoRRBkXqjFNcsGKHV1XW5SKCT=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span face=""Yanone Kaffeesatz", Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span></div><span face=""Yanone Kaffeesatz", Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Eddie Bowles (1884-1984) learned to play guitar in New Orleans alongside Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory, and he lived most of his life in Cedar Falls, Iowa. All recordings on this album were made when Eddie Bowles was in his 90s, and many have not been heard since. You can listen to the album online for free (click <a href="https://eddiebowles.hearnow.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a> or on the album cover)<span face="Yanone Kaffeesatz, Calibri, sans-serif" style="background-color: transparent; text-align: left;">. It is also available on all major music platforms and streaming services. Click <a href="https://eddiebowles.uni.edu" target="_blank">HERE</a> to check out the full album liner notes</span>. If you are in the Cedar Falls area, make sure to check out the Eddie Bowles's Blues exhibit at the Hearst Center for the Arts, which runs through March 27.</div></span></div><p></p><p><br /></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-2795628646157912652022-02-28T12:58:00.008-08:002022-02-28T13:00:46.194-08:00Don't miss what's happening this week!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi27os60Y7Mltn95gdORlAMXnyyd2Diy75ugYIwNSnSVWlrzrG588NL50OUqBZZhX-AEKwNuxMn_5_Y2-6kMdrelkelRwVAzQwX-Z6I_FaeOllaz9ueupkEhv3I0OVocoAn-e0v6Dmpl4RVgG4PsByii_ca7o_mSZm0vBH1wFs_H9EuhKprc-dYSXEM=s1008" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="1008" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi27os60Y7Mltn95gdORlAMXnyyd2Diy75ugYIwNSnSVWlrzrG588NL50OUqBZZhX-AEKwNuxMn_5_Y2-6kMdrelkelRwVAzQwX-Z6I_FaeOllaz9ueupkEhv3I0OVocoAn-e0v6Dmpl4RVgG4PsByii_ca7o_mSZm0vBH1wFs_H9EuhKprc-dYSXEM=w400-h243" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"> Be ready when the album drops on Friday: <a href="https://eddiebowles.hearnow.com/">https://eddiebowles.hearnow.com/</a></div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-83685731515065087302022-02-18T12:52:00.001-08:002022-02-18T13:27:06.008-08:00An Interview with Larry Baker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi521EOelAAQXb0fKnQKcch8HYnPkcV4382xN1T98YpzqGoiMjDx7Oc_J--7ogyxc8NUyBZPJalPRlj-OdgPb-UZ3xcyb_PdqTx1LU0wT6TFqB8B9rFVxuVBkUUo11KEaprKWhhwbzvbbAvqF4Rmtf-zTogBje0wDXJ-UJOfp3ozMpQFx2SCxtI_spp=s1500" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi521EOelAAQXb0fKnQKcch8HYnPkcV4382xN1T98YpzqGoiMjDx7Oc_J--7ogyxc8NUyBZPJalPRlj-OdgPb-UZ3xcyb_PdqTx1LU0wT6TFqB8B9rFVxuVBkUUo11KEaprKWhhwbzvbbAvqF4Rmtf-zTogBje0wDXJ-UJOfp3ozMpQFx2SCxtI_spp=s320" width="256" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Larry Baker returns to the Final Thursday Reading Series as the February featured reader. Baker is the author of seven novels, including his latest, <i>Wyman and the Florida Knights</i> (Ice Cube Press). A former member of the Iowa City Council, he is also an honoree on the Iowa Literary Walk of Fame in Iowa City.</div></b></div></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This month’s Final Thursday Reading Series takes place on February 24 at the Hearst Center for the Arts. The in-person open mic starts at 7 p.m. Baker’s featured reading starts at 7:30. The featured reading can also be streamed live on Zoom. Click <b><a href="https://uni.zoom.us/j/99644847752?pwd=aE1YMmlLM3k2alowRjhla0ZLUUJCZz09" target="_blank">HERE</a></b> for a link.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This interview was conducted by Hannah McConkey.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Hannah McConkey: A number of your books—<i>A Good Man</i>, <i>The Flamingo Rising</i>, <i>Love and Other Delusions</i>, and now <i>Wyman and the Florida Knights</i>—are set in Florida. Aside from it being a good place to visit during long Iowa winters, what draws you back to writing about that state?</b></div></b><div style="text-align: justify;">Larry Baker: I lived in Florida for three years, enough time to accumulate a ton of material for fiction. It’s a unique state. In the early 1800’s it was the least “American” of all the other states. Part of that was its Spanish background, but the single most important distinction was its natural environment. No other state in the Union was comparable. Today, science and capitalism have destroyed that original environment. Today, Florida might be the “most American” state, a hot mess, the worst of what America is becoming.
In the first few pages of <i>Wyman</i>, Thomas Knight goes to Florida in 1866 to establish his New Church of God. Taken into the interior, led by a black Egyptian guide named Pythagoras Jones, Knight confronts foliage and animals totally alien to his northern experience. Knight thinks in Biblical terms, comparing the land around him to a garden. Jones corrects him. Florida, he says, is not a garden. It is a jungle. Confusing the two can be fatal. And that was the core of my story: human vanity thinking it can cultivate a Edenic garden when in reality it is in a hostile jungle. The beasts in that jungle, literal and metaphorical, are not subservient to men like Knight. They were there first and will not relinquish their own dominion. A hundred and fifty years after Thomas Knight went to Florida, his descendant Norton Knight is a dying man with dark secrets. He asks the artist Peter Wyman to paint his portrait. The result is a portrait that puts Knight back into the jungle that his ancestors first encountered. With the “jungle” as a literal and psychological theme (thanks to Henry James for some influence here too), the Florida of 2016 is the perfect setting. Politics, family dynamics, law and order…all are a jungle. You either adapt and survive, or you die.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3SgmzVDo0lTQfax5JmV6FEgaKlWVLo_2cwmbS2vEQAxXCZoLuWyzP8zz1l9J91vFcBQYrg9ZoKc-jucD-k28aVNWUE0ISElYz-QmZYTUXON1f3naJX1Ltu_USabAxVKNMsprVhpjb1ROI7JRfa_EGsYI5Nr2JBmFxMPmiZHpINN_x6FZg697CTjDn=s2700" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2700" data-original-width="1789" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3SgmzVDo0lTQfax5JmV6FEgaKlWVLo_2cwmbS2vEQAxXCZoLuWyzP8zz1l9J91vFcBQYrg9ZoKc-jucD-k28aVNWUE0ISElYz-QmZYTUXON1f3naJX1Ltu_USabAxVKNMsprVhpjb1ROI7JRfa_EGsYI5Nr2JBmFxMPmiZHpINN_x6FZg697CTjDn=s320" width="212" /></a></div><br />HM: Setting is a huge part of <i>Wyman and the Florida Knights</i>. Why did you place so much importance on it, and why did you choose this town in Florida specifically?</b></div></b><div style="text-align: justify;">LB: Answer above might cover most of this, but the important thing to remember is that I did not “choose” the town. I created it. You might also go back and consider two other fictional towns in American culture—the towns of Sheriff Andy Taylor and lawyer Atticus Finch: two versions of mythical rural America. Knightville is neither, but each shapes a character’s perceptions in <i>Wyman</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>HM: With each new character you introduce, you discuss their morality and belief systems. This was an interesting approach. Why did you choose to focus so much on this element of your characters?</b></div></b><div style="text-align: justify;">LB: If I can say that I have any strength as a writer, it would be shown in the characters I create. As in Wyman, all people are individuals with their own histories and baggage, but a “story,” just like life itself, requires that individuals interact with other individuals…morals and beliefs meshing or clashing—that is the narrative plot—an old Greek truism—“Character is Fate”—each of these character's internal “character” determines their actions—and actions have consequences—In the end, who comes through that final door (last page of Wyman) of your life is a consequence of your character.</div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJkKpA_Y-apcwyhHOAXSQ2JLH4jfVEkwiSyOhOuLN1t6uBROxFvCFSxj2C2R1DrjamB_gjhQJu8oi3pNUS_zo0K03q0lb0bTFUgV7KE5N0D48hWeSDzfE9IT2mw6birfywKIo3ljcJUodU8C5ZAPUvM7ousSFe_pEY3qPl7ZZtgUm_YCkOifE2hjYz=s4906" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4906" data-original-width="3101" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhJkKpA_Y-apcwyhHOAXSQ2JLH4jfVEkwiSyOhOuLN1t6uBROxFvCFSxj2C2R1DrjamB_gjhQJu8oi3pNUS_zo0K03q0lb0bTFUgV7KE5N0D48hWeSDzfE9IT2mw6birfywKIo3ljcJUodU8C5ZAPUvM7ousSFe_pEY3qPl7ZZtgUm_YCkOifE2hjYz=s320" width="202" /></a></div><br />HM: Throughout the book, you comment on topics such as racial relations, sexuality, and violence towards women. Did you discuss these topics in order to get more into the different characters’ moralities and mindsets, or was there another reason for this?</b></div></b><div style="text-align: justify;">LB: Race and sex have always been elements/themes in my novels. <i>Wyman</i> is just much more overt in how I illustrate them. And those are not issues external to, or separate from, a character or a real person. They shape us, black and white, male and female. Unless those issues are embodied in the life of a person, they do not exist. They are merely textbook subjects. The issue of “violence toward women” is much more complicated in Wyman. A husband murders his wife. The wife killed her sister. A man slaps his wife, but then slaps another woman who makes it clear that if he does it again he will be a dead man. Indeed, for me, the two most interesting characters in the story are two very different women, each equally strong and independent in her own way. And, remember, any violence against a woman in the story is eventually punished.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>HM: <i>Wyman and the Florida Knights</i> is your seventh novel, which is an impressive achievement. What are you working on now?</b></div></b><div style="text-align: justify;">LB: A ghost story, seriously. An old taxi driver is lured into a haunted theatre and meets the ghosts of whomever performed on that stage in the past. They are all trapped there in some sort of entertainment limbo/purgatory. He doesn’t know it, but he himself might be the key they need to be finally set free. The ghosts also offer him the only chance to be re-united with the lost great love of his life. So, imagine Marilyn Monroe, Will Rogers, Harry Houdini, Patsy Cline, Mark Twain, et al, being major characters.</div><p></p>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3389529854377357964.post-51343618882546892362022-01-21T07:21:00.006-08:002022-01-21T07:22:45.369-08:00An Interview with Kamyar Enshayan<p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgm8sPy59NDZV4OujzRPPMEEJ4iZkxIGR80EHtXaiY9HWZIoChRG1CDUT7DBK3UXI5A7JOzMlM_CtQuzRskF5rvwuOPDUMZJyjSpWKz-Yn7uc28hZMNV3st0jGx8uTrAjqtADPheg8sJicREaWXMD8FeYZi8bAKdmFFZ4UJuhYRTTKo0XfFrNuCs-G=s1536" style="clear: right; display: inline; float: right; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgm8sPy59NDZV4OujzRPPMEEJ4iZkxIGR80EHtXaiY9HWZIoChRG1CDUT7DBK3UXI5A7JOzMlM_CtQuzRskF5rvwuOPDUMZJyjSpWKz-Yn7uc28hZMNV3st0jGx8uTrAjqtADPheg8sJicREaWXMD8FeYZi8bAKdmFFZ4UJuhYRTTKo0XfFrNuCs-G=w320-h320" width="320" /></a></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;">Kamyar Enshayan will be the featured reader at the Final Thursday Reading Series on January 27 at the Hearst Center for the Arts. The in-person open mic starts at 7 p.m. Enshayan’s featured reading starts at 7:30. The featured reading can also be streamed live on Zoom. Click </span><a href="https://uni.zoom.us/j/92254763352?pwd=VFRHdlRiUU5seXFZdThqWVRQNHpQZz09" style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;">HERE</a><span style="font-weight: bold; text-align: justify;"> for a link. </span></div><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Enshayan was born in Iran and came to the U.S. in 1978. He has worked to strengthen Iowa’s local food economy, directs UNI’s Center for Energy & Environmental Education, and has served on the Cedar Falls City Council. That varied experience serves as the backdrop for his latest collection of essays, <i>My Citizenship Papers</i>. </p><p style="text-align: justify;"> This interview was conducted by Jim O’Loughlin. </p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Jim O’Loughlin: The essays, articles and speeches in <i>My Citizenship Papers</i> were written over many years to address a range of immediate concerns. What made you decide to put them all together in a book?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kamyar Enshayan: I had been thinking about how to celebrate 40 years of living in the U.S., most of it in Iowa. And I wanted to do something to honor these years, the way I have been engaged, what I have learned, people who have been influential in who I have become. So the idea of putting a variety of short pieces together was one way; I also decided to go visit the teacher who taught me English in Hattiesburg, Mississippi 40 years ago. </div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi99jysKRZIVFNvwLS3lUx72CAO6pOVCFqD-s0PDeizKkAInVgVOe5BoOs_YoU99bN2PYLgYGzdWRSkIFD78dFO1e6bNA3MdGZivXC6B1AJEj5RkLdQkDQQwDP4c82qv3NpJTzDAp3j95G1vKkJcDSQ2OVncwh_4-bu0gxXA7EkC86PKCLVTLl5UOg5=s1000" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi99jysKRZIVFNvwLS3lUx72CAO6pOVCFqD-s0PDeizKkAInVgVOe5BoOs_YoU99bN2PYLgYGzdWRSkIFD78dFO1e6bNA3MdGZivXC6B1AJEj5RkLdQkDQQwDP4c82qv3NpJTzDAp3j95G1vKkJcDSQ2OVncwh_4-bu0gxXA7EkC86PKCLVTLl5UOg5=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: justify;">JO: This book was a project you did with the Youth Art Team. Can you say a little about their work and how you became involved with the organization?</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;">KE: I have been admiring the work of the Youth Art Team for years. Through engaging the youth in the life and history of the local community in creative ways, the Youth Art Team is helping a generation appreciate and develop affection for the place they are growing up, learn who is who and what has happened here, and shape its future. That's the heart of education, and the heart of citizenship. The theme of Making Iowa Home grew out of collaboration with the Youth Art Team, and the young artists interviewed "new Iowans" in the community and learned about their life lessons. This resulted in two short books, one written and illustrated by the Youth Art Team, and the other a series of short articles by me, illustrated by a friend, also a youth artist. 100% of proceeds from the sale of the books support the work of the Youth Art Team. </div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>JO: I appreciate the care you use to find the right metaphors and narratives to communicate scientific concepts. Is that something you consciously try to do when writing for a general audience?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">KE: Yes, scientists and engineers have a duty to translate what we know about how the world works in plain English, so that ordinary citizens can weigh in and expect that public officials make decisions based on evidence for the public interest. A strong democracy depends on making decisions in the public interest that are based on evidence rather than purchased political friendship. </div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_4oReUcJfI07n3og87TUBfvaXRcMVsKRmOyt3XHIlhMDOaCEt7mZk8ahegU4b-ea1-dZjM4prO_FeoT_V9xBBaVq_ZEmvR3H7hKFoVtINmf9R0QHvHxsdAgQhQGkhi5udumJyBEl3BEqACw6pktunYijOT8U8vuXGer8qU900Hbya7bbswc6NM0s7=s4906" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4906" data-original-width="3101" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_4oReUcJfI07n3og87TUBfvaXRcMVsKRmOyt3XHIlhMDOaCEt7mZk8ahegU4b-ea1-dZjM4prO_FeoT_V9xBBaVq_ZEmvR3H7hKFoVtINmf9R0QHvHxsdAgQhQGkhi5udumJyBEl3BEqACw6pktunYijOT8U8vuXGer8qU900Hbya7bbswc6NM0s7=w202-h320" width="202" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-weight: 700;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><div style="text-align: justify;">JO: While there are many reasons to be concerned about the state of the environment in Iowa and beyond. I’ve always been impressed by your optimistic approach. What gives you the most hope for tackling the challenges we have?</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;">KE: The work of people before us inspires me: people whose sacrifices have brought us our civil rights, our right to vote, laws protecting air and water. My students and my co-workers inspire me; they want to see action, they want to see knowledge acted on, effective and equitable policies implemented. That energizes my work. They say that we already know most of what we need to know to act to solve major problems. I totally agree. Let's get busy.</div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><br /></div>Jim O'Loughlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08353448007310520178noreply@blogger.com0